Candid camera

Katie Price of all people has highlighted the abuse that occurs in some nursing homes, and suggested they should all have cameras in every room so relatives can see what's going on and be sure everything's okay.

She says she knows what she's talking about because at one time she was a carer for the elderly in nursing homes. So she can tell the good homes from the bad ones.

"Sadly over the last few years we've seen too many cases of abuse in nursing homes - places that you trust to care and look after your elderly relations" she says.

Her solution is cameras - so everything is visible 24 hours a day and nothing untoward could escape the public gaze. Anyone could check on what's happening - not just relatives but social workers, doctors, or just concerned individuals.

"Some will say this is an invasion of privacy - I say it's helping protect those who can't protect themselves."

What would the residents think of having cameras everywhere, I wonder? Would they welcome such routine monitoring or would they dislike the intrusion into their daily lives?

My sister, who has MND, is in a nursing home right now because my brother in law, who usually looks after her, has just had a major operation. I'm assured she's happy there and has no complaints. But it would be especially reassuring to see everything on camera and be certain she's being well-treated.

The fact is that there have been some absolutely shocking examples of outright cruelty and neglect in nursing homes, behaviour that could have been nipped in the bud if those outside had been aware of it.

It seems to me that only those with something to hide would object.

PS: Some American states have passed laws to allow electronic monitoring in long-term care facilities. They include Texas, New Mexico, Washington, Oklahoma and Maryland. Hidden cameras have caught abuse three times in Pennsylvania - they recorded mocking, manhandling and slapping. There's an interesting article about cameras in nursing homes here. 

Home help

I was moved by the generosity of a 93 year old North Devon woman who has used the proceeds of her first published novel to buy a house where her friends can stay instead of ending up in lifeless nursing homes.

Lorna Page thinks most nursing homes are so awful (“You sit there all day staring out of the window”) she wants to provide something better that will be life-enhancing rather than stultifying.

“I started asking people if they wanted to move out of their care homes and live with me and I’ve had dozens of offers. They are queuing up” she said.

It’s equally impressive that she’s become a published author in her nineties. She didn’t even think the book (A Dangerous Weakness) was much good but her daughter-in-law persuaded her to send it to a publisher.

Personally I’d hate to end up in a nursing home. I’ve visited quite a few and they always seem desperately soul-destroying. The residents sit around like zombies looking bored to death and stupefied by a barrage of powerful drugs.

Last year Jenny and I visited an aunt who was in a Belfast nursing home temporarily while she recovered from an operation. The sight of the several dozen permanent residents slumped speechless in their armchairs doing absolutely nothing was so terrifying I couldn’t get out of the building fast enough.

I would rather be roasted slowly on hot coals than end up in a place like that. I hope to hell I just die quickly of a heart attack or a rapid cancer rather than spend years incarcerated in a nursing home not in full possession of my faculties but still dragging out my life.

Other people see it differently. They believe a lot of those apparently comatose nursing home residents are actually quite content, their minds meandering happily through old memories and experiences and conjuring up all manner of fabulous interior landscapes.

I wish I could believe that, but I think hopeless despair seems more likely. Count me out.
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I'm pleased to read that Dr Paul Miller, the psychiatrist who Northern Ireland MP Iris Robinson claimed could "cure" homosexuals has severed his connection with her. He has also been suspended from his psychiatric job at the Mater Hospital in Belfast. Unfortunately he is being made the scapegoat for the controversy, while Iris still refuses to resign over her description of homosexuality as an "abomination" and a practice "as bad as child sex abuse".