Repeated rape of 98-year-old sparks row
(China Daily)
Updated: 2006-02-22 06:19

The repeated rape of a 98-year-old woman at an Australian nursing home prompted calls yesterday for the introduction of mandatory reporting of abuse in aged care institutions.

The woman, who was suffering from dementia, was raped three times in a nursing home in Victoria State in which other residents were also sexually abused by the same male staff member, ABC television reported late on Monday.

A man has since been charged by police over the case.

Carers at another Victorian nursing home also told the programme that elderly dementia patients were regularly drugged and humiliated to make them more manageable but these claims were denied by the state health department.

Relatives of the rape victim told the ABC they were angry that a staff member had witnessed one assault but not reported it for two months.

"We want to know why it happened more than once with our gran, we want to know why it happened in a sustained way across a number of other residents," one of the woman's granddaughters told the ABC.

Founder of the Australian Elder Abuse Prevention Association Lillian Jeter said mandatory reporting must be adopted to deal with some 80,000 cases of abuse against seniors in homes and the community each year.

"There are no reporting mechanisms at all. Who do you call? There's no entity to actually receive the call, like child protective services," she said.

"We have better laws on the books for the prevention of the cruelty to animals. Now that is shameful, absolutely shameful."

Minister for the Ageing Santo Santoro yesterday moved to reassure Australians that the majority of nursing home residents were well cared for but he said he would keep his options open on improvements.

"I'm not rejecting any suggestion, including the suggestion that mandatory reporting should be introduced at some level," he told ABC radio.

Australian Prime Minister John Howard describes the alleged rape of a 98-year-old woman as an appalling and tragic case.

But Howard says the majority of elderly Australians are well cared for in the nation's aged care facilities.

He also backed Santoro, saying the government would consider calls for mandatory reporting of abuse of the elderly.

"If those allegations are true, it is just a very, very distasteful, appalling, tragic situation," Howard told reporters.

"I can't at this stage of course say anything further about the particular issue except to express my horror, my disgust and almost disbelief that anybody could be treated in that fashion."

(China Daily 02/22/2006 page6)