6th June 2001
The Daily Mail, Saturday March 24th 2001, page 17, has the headline and opener:
I work as a care assistant. When my partner on a particular day knelt down behind a resident on the Serita hoist to wipe her bottom, the resident coughed, which started her diahorrea, which pretty much covered my partner. All together now, ewwwwwww!!!!.
Thing is, my partner cleaned herself up. I think she puked too (well, wouldn't you?). But she stood in the shower with her uniform on, towelled herself off, and went back to work for the remainder of her shift, damp and grossed out, but still with us.
Let me say, a few girls have been urinated on (I have been lucky so far - touch wood), but in the two-odd years I've been doing this, the above scenario has only happened the once I'm aware of. It's not an everyday occurance.
The point? It is an expected 'perk' of this job. When you are dealing with incontinent
people who are filled to bursting point with sennacot and lactulose, you have to expect some very
messy messes. If she went to complain, she might be given the rest of the day off but it wouldn't
help her collegues or the residents who depend on us.
Certainly, to sue the home for some kind of emotional trauma or whatever is just silly.
So is a paramedic suing the medical profession for the 'trauma' of doing what paramedics do. Or the more recent cases of firemen and police suing for traumas brought about by performing their jobs.
People, let me give you fifty pence. Go buy a frigging life!
It is acceptable to sue if your employer has been negligent in any way. Hell, the adverts
on television and radio for Claims Direct imply that you can take action for all sorts of
physical injuries.
While we should not discount or ridicule emotional injuries, one is awfully tempted to say that
is it the employee in question who is acting in a negligent manner. If they can't hack
their job (and that means all aspects of it, not just the good bits), then they simply
cannot be performing their job properly.
The paramedic in question may have been a brilliant paramedic, but surely his emotional response
to his first really gory accident scene should have told him if he was cut out for it. My mom was
to be a helivac nurse when she was training. She took one look at the helicopter coming in and
said "no chance". That is correct. What would not be correct is to get in and
spend the journey scared rigid until it messed with her mind, and maybe affected her abilities.
Think about it, what next? The members of the army suing because they had to kill some of the
designated enemy?
Oh, wait, hasn't that one come along too?
Addendum: 29th July 2001
I don't need to say anything. Just read this frame retrieved from Sky's teletext service...