Elderly Resident Of Nursing Home In South Australia Is Served Baked Beans With Mashed Potatoes For Christmas Dinner

Jan 03, 2020 by apost team

Everyone loves Christmas dinner, an elegant prime rib or fragrant ham with shining glaze, the array of colorful side dishes and special dessert. For some lonely old age home residents, these special treats may be the only thing that brightens their Christmas Day. You can imagine the hurt and disappointment of some residents of The Vales Nursing Home in Australia, when their “Christmas dinner” turned out to be a sloppy plate of baked beans with two small scoops of mashed potatoes.

According to the Daily Mail, someone visiting a relative at The Vales heard a cry of distress in a nearby room, and went to see what was wrong. She found an elderly woman sitting alone, reduced to tears by the miserable meal she’d been served. The visitor took a picture of the skimpy plate, and sent it to the local MP, Nat Cook.

Cook wasted no time letting Vales administrators know how she felt about their shabby treatment of residents. She told The New Daily that such a meal wouldn’t be acceptable even on normal days, let alone for Christmas dinner. After consoling the old woman, the visitor went straight to the Chief Executive of the Vales Nursing Home, a Mr. Neil Pahuja. She got little satisfaction there.

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The Vales Home is in Morphett Vale, in Adelaide, South Australia. It is owned by All Care Aged Care. The company tried to defend the meal, stating to The New Daily that it was only an optional early evening meal, and that a more attractive dinner had been served on Christmas Eve. They did have to admit, however, that the food had been “very poorly presented.”

The company said it would look into the situation and make sure the presentation of food was improved. The Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety has also been made aware of the baked bean Christmas dinner.

One disturbing aspect of this incident is that Mr. Pahuja, who runs The Vale Home, is also the deputy chairman of the Aged Care Industry Association, a private group open to all providers of care for the elderly.

As Gaye Crispin said on Twitter, “If this is true than we have a fox in charge of this hen house." If an executive in the Association is responsible for this appalling Christmas dinner, you have to wonder just how low industry standards are, and what residents are served on ordinary days.

The elderly are becoming nearly invisible in our society. They should not be forgotten, and left to the mercy of management who care more about profit than people. If you have elderly relatives or friends in a nursing home, try to make time to visit them and take note of how they are treated. If you don’t you can still help by spreading the word about incidents like the one at The Vales Home. Nursing homes will be less likely to mistreat their residents if they know that the public is watching what they do.

What ideas do you have for improving nursing home quality?