The manner in which the Social Services Agency and its predecessors have operated the Dr Giraldi Home has been revealed in the statements made by both employees and families to show a history of treatment of persons with disabilities which has not been investigated nor denied nor has any action been taken.
In the course of the Joanna Hernandez Tribunal Hearings the allegations of treatment amounting to abuse of persons with disabilities would have been made under oath and those making the allegations would have been open to cross examination by the legal representative of the Agency.
In fact before the Agency at the very last minute announced they could not produce proof that Joanna Hernandez had been dismissed for the alleged reason namely incompetence, the strategy of the Agency was to object to the number of witnesses being called and to argue that the Tribunal was not about the alleged abuses and that this issue was “collateral”. One would have thought that it was both in the public interest and in the interest of the Agency for that evidence to be brought out in the Tribunal if there was nothing to hide.
In fact the allegations of abuse were very relevant since the Joanna Hernandez dismissal was as far as the complainant was concerned linked to her demand for an investigation whilst she was still in post and is related to the view held by many other employees some of whom say so in their witness statements that there was a deliberate cover-up of the state of affairs of the Agency’s running of the Home.
In the case of one particular child the witness statement by members of the family alleged that in the five years he was in the care of the Home the following were the examples of the treatment he was subjected to and no one in the Agency did anything to investigate these allegations or to produce a satisfactory explanation for the family. The treatment given to this child included the following:
* punished by having to stand up holding heavy books on the palm of his hand;
*having his head pushed into a fridge to stop him bothering others;
*given cold showers whilst the child was screaming as a result of his condition;
*being taken to a doctor who commented to the family that there were bruises and bite marks on the child’s arm and questioned the family’s treatment but did nothing about it when he was told that the child was not in the family’s care but in the care of the Agency;
*the child having suffered a leg fracture whilst in the care of the Agency with no explanation being given to the family as to how it came about.
This in fact is not an isolated incident but a reflection of the culture that has persisted in the way the Agency has handled its responsibilities of those it is supposed to be protecting and caring for. Other witnesses also point to treatment of persons with disabilities amounting to abuse and these matters will remain until cleared up.
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