106 carers in a year for dementia patient, 72

SCOTLAND’S main Alzheimer’s charity has condemned the “unacceptable” treatment of a dementia patient who had more than 100 different carers in the last 12 months of his life.

Ken Maitland, 72, whose funeral was held in Aberdeen yesterday, was seen by a total of 106 carers, while his wife, Jeanette, continued to care for her seriously ill husband at their home at Kingswells on the outskirts of the city.

Mrs Maitland said the constant stream of strangers at their home had started in April last year after her husband’s care was taken over by a new agency, contracted by Aberdeen City Council.

“Where is respect for his dignity?” she said. “I feel I should have sold tickets.”

Valerie Watts, chief executive of the city council, yesterday pledged to investigate the quality of care given to Mr Maitland. But Kirsty Jardine, awareness manager at Alzheimer Scotland, claimed the “unjustifiably frequent changes of support and care staff” were not acceptable.

Ms Jardine said: “The sheer scale of the number of people involved in this case may be unusual but people being faced with repeated new carers coming into the house with no warning and no explanation is not so unusual in Scotland.

“And people with dementia need routine – they need familiarity and time to build up relationships with the people who are caring for them.

“And to have a constant change of staff must be distressing and stressful.”

She added: “No-one should have to go through the experience that Jeanette Maitland and her late husband faced. Unjustifiably frequent changes of support and care staff are simply not acceptable in any circumstance, particularly where dementia is concerned, and we must learn some very quick lessons from this terrible situation.

“In order for the human rights of people with dementia and their carers to be recognised they have to have consistency of care and consistency in the standards of training of the people caring for them.”

Mrs Maitland said her husband, who died last week, had been suffering from dementia for several years and that she had cared for him at home with the help of teams of two carers who called there four times a day.

Last April a new company took over his care under a new contract.

She began to write down the names of her husband’s carers so she could get to know them. A year later, she had 106 names in her notebook. She said: “I thought I would take a note of their names and get to know the girls’ faces and that would be fine - a good start.

“But they kept appearing and appearing, so I just kept listing and listing. It was getting out of control.

“I thought, fair enough it’s going to settle down. Unfortunately, it didn’t and it kept escalating. He was a very private person and then suddenly to be reduced to the realms of just anyone and everyone with him in an intimate situation was soul destroying.”

Mrs Maitland said that people suffering from dementia had already “lost everything”.

She added: “Their life has gone. And the only thing they are left with is dignity and if you sweep that away you are just disposing of them.”

Ms Watts said: “I gave Mrs Maitland a personal assurance I would look into the concerns she raised and respond at the earliest opportunity.”