There’s an article on the BBC news site about an elderly woman who received awful care, but the article focuses on her being fed cat food by her carer by mistake. The error was spotted after a few mouthfuls because she had 2 carers present and the other noticed that the label clearly said “cat food”.
The article written in a way that makes it clear this is meant to be deeply horrifying but all I can think is “yeah that probably happens all the time but most people don’t have 2:1 care so it never gets spotted or recorded properly”.
Just last month I asked for flavoured water (in the fridge but I didn’t think to specify) and was given bubble mixture (admittedly in an old flavoured water bottle without the label but under the desk, next to the bubble machine I take to Pride). I was thirsty and took two big slurps through a straw so there was no smell to give it away until it was too late and I threw up shortly after (for anyone curious there were bubbles). This carer is genuinely lovely if chronically short on common sense, but I feel safe with him in general.
And a few years ago a carer mixed up my meds and tried giving me 8x the dose of one of my meds over 24hrs. I noticed after only taking twice the prescribed dose and didn’t become seriously ill (I looked it up and if I’d taken all the doses then the mistake could have been fatal). I also found out later that the mistake wasn’t formally recorded anywhere so never officially happened. (This person no longer works in care, no one else is at risk).
Admittedly everyone tells me I have particularly shitty luck with carers. But going by other severely disabled people here I’m not convinced it’s uniquely bad. Also I am able to recognise and communicate errors, people who can’t often receive much worse treatment. But anyway, I’m convinced that way more people are being fed pet food than the BBC seems to think (although I accept that’s hard to prove either way).













