A 14-year-old autistic boy was the victim of abuse in a nursing home in the Kuopio region.
Janne Niiranen
The boy had not wanted to hand over the vacuum cleaner tube. The nurse who supervised the boy’s vacuuming was unable to get the tube for herself. He asked another colleague who worked in the department for older children for help.
The 46-year-old woman got down to business. He hurried to the boy’s room.
According to her own account, the woman had asked the boy to give the tube, but to no avail. According to the woman, the over 170-centimeter, rather rambunctious boy became aggressive. According to the woman’s claim, the boy punched her, kicked her and hit her on the head with a pipe.
At this point, the other woman had backed into the hallway and therefore did not see what was happening in the apartment and soon in its bathroom. This nurse alerted the nurse on duty with the younger children.
”Runttasi”
Just then, the third employee who was on duty arrived. He saw how a colleague was lying on top of an autistic boy and the woman’s hand was on the boy’s neck. At this point the boy stood up, but the woman pushed him to the floor again.
This pressure was later described by a colleague in court as a thrashing.
The situation calmed down now. The boy remained on the floor in the fetal position. According to the boy’s nurse, his behavior changed during the rest of the day. He craved closeness.
The next day, the boy’s nurse noticed bruises on him. However, according to this nurse’s testimony, the head of the department did not want to find out what happened. Because of this, she filed a child protection report.
The doctor noticed skin changes on the boy’s elbow, chest and back. A 45-year-old woman also went to the doctor, where the shoulder impact and resulting movement restriction were recorded.
800 euros compensation for the boy
The suspected crime that happened in November 2021 ended up in the district court of Pohjois-Savo. Today, a 49-year-old woman was charged with assault. The growing son joined the prosecution and demanded compensation.
The woman denied the charge. He claimed he had not touched the boy at all. He had only attached the vacuum cleaner to the pipe. In this case, a struggle arose in which the boy was stronger. In the situation, they had both been on their feet.
According to the accused, Attendo had not given any operating instructions for such situations. According to him, they had no instructions on how to deal with aggressive children.
Colleagues at the time of the accused act testified at the trial. One of them had seen with his own eyes that the accused was on top of the boy and pressed him to the floor. The district court found the account of this witness more credible than the account of the accused.
The abuse was shown to be true. The court sentenced the accused to a 40-day fine, which amounts to 2,120 euros for a fairly well-paid woman. He must compensate the young person 400 euros for the personal injury and 400 euros for the suffering caused by the insult, both amounts with late payment interest.
The sentence handed down on Friday is not legally binding. Attendo was not a party to the lawsuit.
Attendo: The incident was investigated
According to Attendo’s communications manager, the matter was investigated as soon as it came to the attention of the supervisor and the employer. Attendo investigated what happened together with the subscriber, and the subscriber made a monitoring visit to the nursing home due to the incident.
According to the communications manager, the employee had called the supervisor the next day. The employee stated at the time that he and another employee were thinking about whether the incident should be reported to child protection. To this, the person in charge had replied that “we are in contact with the customer” and that “the whole incident is under explanation”. However, according to the communications manager, the employees made their own decision and ended up with a child protection report.
According to Attendo’s communications manager, there were operating instructions for challenging situations and aggressiveness. The legislation alone requires it. In the case of this particular resident, a 14-year-old autistic boy, there were still his own operating instructions, which had been issued only a week before the abuse discussed in court.
During the subsequent monitoring visit, the customer had been satisfied with the documents guiding the operation, considering them to be of high quality.
The article was clarified on 29.10. 5:59 p.m.: It has been added to the original news and clarified that the supervisor’s reluctance to find out what happened was based on the nurse’s testimony. The same content is specified in the title as well. At the end of the news, Attendo’s position on the matter has also been added. Added a note that Attendo was not a party to the lawsuit.
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