A nurse who kicked, slapped and elbowed an 84-year-old woman at the luxury Lily Kirchmann Home for the Frail in East London has been found guilty on five counts of assault, reports News24.
Hope Shepherd's daughter Bernice Robertson had hidden a camera in her mother's room because she suspected that she was being abused, the report said. In the recordings, Ncediswa Mkenkcele can be seen using her fists and elbows on the woman and slapping her. At one stage, Mkenkcele also kicks the elderly woman in the stomach.
The assaults, on 3 and 23 February, 2015, were captured on a secret camera in a television set at the home. The report says the video material also shows Mkenkcele beating Shepherd against the head with a deodorant spray can and spraying the deodorant into her face and into her windpipe.
Robertson testified in the East London Magistrate's Court that her mother's broken arm, bruises, and a black eye had made her suspicious. Shepherd couldn't speak because she had throat cancer. She was transferred to another facility but died in December 2015.
Magistrate Ignatius Kitching found Mkenkcele guilty after studying the videos.
The report said Robertson believes her mother died as a result of the abuse. "We are satisfied that she's been found guilty and hope for the heaviest sentence possible."
Mkenkcele will be sentenced on 30 March. She is currently out on bail.
In an earlier EP Herald report, Berea Gardens Retirement Foundation executive director Mike Schulze said there had been a meeting with the Shepherd family.
“We apologised unreservedly for the alleged assaults against her,” he said.
“The employee involved resigned immediately on being confronted.”
Schulze said it was the first case of this nature in the Lily Kirchmann complex in the 9½ years that he had been executive director and, “to the best of my knowledge, is the first case of this nature in the history of the foundation”.
Robertson planted the camera on December 31 when her mother sustained an unexplained broken arm.
Days before she had noticed bruises and swollen marks on her mother’s body.
“There were not enough good reasons as to what happened to her from the staff, other than that she had fallen off the bed or bumped herself,” Robertson said.
In February, she noticed her mother had a blue eye.
She then viewed the footage on her camera and saw the assaults. She immediately notified complex management.
“It really has been a traumatic experience for me and my family. I saw my mother being beaten and pushed around,” Robertson said.
She had moved her mother from the home to a facility in Selborne, but her mother was confused and suffering from flashbacks, she said.
Clients pay as much as R14 000 a month for their loved ones to be cared for at Lily Kirchmann.
Schulze said in addition to the criminal charges, the foundation had met with all nursing staff at Lily Kirchmann to again stress the foundation’s zerotolerance policy on abuse.
Letters had also been sent to the residents’ families.
[link url="http://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/nurse-found-guilty-of-assaulting-woman-84-in-her-care-20170126"]News24 report[/link]
[link url="http://www.heraldlive.co.za/news/2015/05/05/nurse-court-assault-caught-camera/"]EP Herald report[/link]