An aged care royal commission has heard harrowing evidence of a Sydney dementia patient being tied up and medicated with antipsychotic drugs without his family's consent during a 61-day respite stay. Terry Reeves, a dementia patient, was physically restrained in a chair for up to 14 hours at Garden View nursing home, according to testimony from his daughters, Michelle McCulla and Natalie Smith.
The daughters told the inquiry that their father was left a broken man after the ordeal. McCulla described finding him in a sealed-off section of the nursing home, restrained and unresponsive. “He was asleep or he had his head in his chest, eyes closed, drooling,” she said. Smith added that restraints were sometimes applied to both legs.
Staff claimed Reeves was restrained for his own safety and because he would wander or yell at workers. However, the family noted that Reeves lost weight and became incontinent after the stay. His wife, Lillian, testified that he became a “dribbling and shuffling” shell of his former self.
Registered nurse Jayanthi Kannan admitted that restraint charts were sometimes filled out at the end of shifts based on recollection, potentially inaccurately. She denied seeing an email warning staff not to sit restrained residents where visitors could see them. Dr Kenneth Wong, who prescribed the antipsychotic risperidone, acknowledged that increasing the dose was illogical given the risk of falls, but said he acted on nurses' requests.
The federal government has announced a national crackdown on such practices after disturbing footage was broadcast on ABC TV.
