A former care assistant at a Limavady nursing home has appeared before court charged with wilfully neglecting an elderly dementia patient.
Joanne Doherty of 47 Anderson Crescent, Limavady appeared before the town’s court charged with committing the offence on November 24 last year.
The court heard that two members of staff at Rush Hall Care Home were attending to an 86 year-old inpatient on the morning of November 25 when she complained to them that she had a sore arm.
The patient, who the court heard suffers from dementia, told staff that she had fallen the night before in the presence of a carer called ‘Annie’.
Staff identified ‘Annie’ as the defendant, 43 year-old Doherty, and when she was questioned by the manager of the home, she stated that the injured party definitely had not fallen while in her care.
The injured party was subsequently taken to hospital where an x-ray confirmed that she had fractured her left shoulder.
The court heard that she also had sustained a cut on her leg.
Following this, another care assistant confided in a fellow member of staff that Doherty had approached her on the evening of November 24 and asked her to help lift the patient up off the ground.
The other care assistant said that she did not see the fall but claimed that Doherty had told her the patient had slipped and fallen before allegedly adding ‘you did not see the fall’, the court heard.
The care assistant said that she didn’t say anything at the time as she did not want to be involved.
During an initial interview with police, Doherty stated that the patient did not fall but she may have slipped.
However she later told officers that the patient had slipped on the night in question and she had gone down with her also.
Doherty said she didn’t mention she had slipped at the time as the injured party hadn’t complained of any pain and because she was ‘too scared’.
She added that she would have reported the incident if she had known the elderly patient had fractured her shoulder.
Speaking on behalf of the injured party’s family, who the court heard has since passed away, a prosecutor said that they wanted to emphasise that there are a number of good staff at Rush Hall but they feel that there has been ‘a severe breach of trust’ in the home.
The prosecutor added that the family have found the whole situation ‘very distressing’ and feel that they are going through ‘a second mourning period’.
Eoghan Devlin of counsel said Doherty, who the court heard suffers from minor brain injuries, wanted to indicate her apologies to the injured party’s family.
“She feels a very heavy burden of guilt. She did not set out on this day to hurt anyone,” he said.
Mr Devlin described Doherty’s actions of ‘trying to cover up’ the incident as ‘child-like’.
“It’s an appalling set of circumstances,” added Mr Devlin.
Adjourning the case until next week, District Judge Liam McNally said he required time to consider a suitable sentence.
He told Doherty that he needed to take into account the pain and injury sustained to the patient, the defendant’s culpability and a pre-sentence report which had been prepared on her behalf.
Doherty is due back before the court on November 12.
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