'Her mouth was full of maggots': A further glimpse into life at some of Ireland's nursing homes

In the wake of RTÉ's investigation into the unsafe care and undignified treatment inside some of Ireland's nursing homes, two heart-broken people have spoken out on their own experiences in what is meant to be a safe and secure environment.

Speaking to The Hard Shoulder on Newstalk, a carer going under the alias of Mandy recounted some of her own dreadful memories whilst looking after the elderly.

Mandy said: "We had an incident with a lady who had dementia. The staff was getting her ready for bed and she didn't know what was going on. She was, I suppose, very upset because there was a male carer and a female nurse. This lady was very aggressive, it wasn't her fault. 

"They pushed her and when they did pushed her, she hit her head off the radiator. She bled out from the head and I asked them to call an ambulance and the nurse said, 'No, put her back to bed.' That lady died two weeks later," she revealed. 

The carer, who has over 20 years of experience in this field, reported the incident and statements were taken, however, as far as she is aware it was not looked into further. 

In her time on air with presenter Kieran Cuddihy, Mandy gave insight into another caring incident. 

"I had another lady (who was) over by the window. I just went over to see how she was and I always remember her saying the night was freezing cold. I went off to close the window and I looked at her, and her lips were really, really dry. So, I put gloves on me and I put my big finger on her lip, and I was like, 'Oh my God.'

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"I tried to get my finger inside her mouth, but when I did, I pulled her dentures from the top and her mouth was full of maggots. Now that lady obviously hadn't eaten in about a week, she couldn't speak to me. I went to get a nurse, and the nurse who I called also worked with me. We were brought into the nursing home. She came in with me and it was just horrific. She passed away weeks later, she had got COVID, so she died from COVID, but nothing came of it," Mandy added. 

The carer also went on to claim that nursing homes get tip-offs when HIQA (inspectors) are coming so "everything is ready, everything is rosy, everything is perfect" ahead of their arrival. 

On this, Mandy stated: "If they (the nursing home) know HIQA are coming, if residents have bruises on them, they're kept in bed with the room door closed."

When asked by the presenter how difficult it must be to work in these conditions, she said: "I was never on medication in my life and now I'm on medication for anxiety because I suffer now a lot of anxiety from what I witnessed. I used to come home, get into the shower and cry my eyes out. My husband even said to me, 'You need to give up that job.' I can't. I can't give up the job because I feel that I need to be there to mind them."

Mandy encourages family members of those in nursing homes to visit at night "because at night-time, a lot of these things happen" due to understaffing and no Director of Nursing being present. 

She went so far as to take photographs of issues in the nursing home, something she is not allowed to do, and sent them by email to the Minister of Health. She says she never heard anything back.

Another guest, David, revealed how his father was let down in a nursing home, while suffering from Alzheimer's. 

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"He (David's father) was admitted to hospital in 2018 in December with Alzheimer's and everything was well, he went into hospital with other issues. He was treated well, we thought, at the start.

"I'd go over and visit at certain times in the two weeks after Christmas, one of the things I started to notice that just didn't feel right and wasn't right with my dad was that on one occasion I went over, I was actually with my wife when I went over, and we went into the room, there was no carer in the room when we walked in, he had 24-hour care, there was no one there. He was naked in the bed and he had gone to the toilet on himself," he told listeners. 

According to David, it took over two hours to locate a nurse to change and clean up his father after this incident. 

He continued, saying: "Another occasion between that month, I had gone over unannounced and found him in a terrible state again. On one occasion, I went in and actually, the carer in the room was asleep on the chair with a tablet on his lap but my dad was hanging out of bed. I didn't go to the carer, I went directly back to the nurse at the desk and said that the carer's asleep."

David does not believe anyone was reprimanded and as time went on, he said he began to notice more and more bruises on his father's body. 

"I was getting no answers from no one," he told the Hard Shoulder. 

Things took a heart-breaking turn that January when he met with his father's physician and was informed he only had about six months to live. However, a week-and-a-half later, David received a phone call from the same physician - this time telling him that his beloved father now only had 3 to 4 days to live. 

It was revealed that David's father took a fall and was suffering from a bleed in the brain.

Upon visiting his dad, David said: "From head to toe, he was bruised. From head to toe. His eye was swollen out and he had a tube in when I went to see him.

"I didn't recognise my own dad in the bed, he was that badly bruised."

When asked by David, the medical professionals claimed they did not know how this occurred. "I knew exactly what happened," he said, maintaining that his father fell out of the bed, despite allegedly having 24-hour care. 

To listen to the full segment on The Hard Shoulder with Kieran Cuddihy, you can go here.