Deeply disturbed....

A woman who removed her elderly mother from a care home amid worries over her health was shocked to see police and social workers on her doorstep with a battering ram ready to snatch her back. Rosalind Figg was concerned about the treatment her elderly mother was receiving and took her home to look after her personally. But social workers in Coventry disagreed with her actions and used a little-known power to take her back. They obtained an emergency warrant from magistrates under the Mental Health Act on the grounds that a "person believed to be suffering from a mental disorder is being ill treated and neglected". Two days later they turned up at Mrs Figg's Keresley home with police in tow as back up. Mrs Figg was forced to hand over her distraught 86-year-old mother Betty who was wheeled to a car with a blanket over her head and returned to Butts Croft House. A police spokesman said: "Police were asked to assist social services to remove an elderly woman to a place of safety. "A warrant was granted and an enforcer was taken in order to gain access to the property if needed. The enforcer was not used."


I surely am not the only priest who, while admittedly not knowing all the facts in this case, find it deeply disturbing. Like many priests I have visited some of my flock in a number of parishes now who have been in Residential and Nursing Homes that I would not wish to see either one of my loved ones or myself in. I have also seen the distress of relatives at the lack of basic hygiene and care that is afforded to some in hospital and Residential Care. Even more worrying is the fact that a Funeral Director said to me when I expressed the view that a particular Residential Home was OK, "But, Father, you don't see it at night - we do, and we judge a home by what we see when we go to pick up a body and that is often at night."

It is not appropriate to give specific examples, but from my point of view there are deeply disturbing points in this case.