Farangis and Robert
Content Warning: These stories are about violence, abuse, neglect and exploitation and may include references to suicide or self-harming behaviours. They may contain graphic descriptions and strong language and may be distressing. Some narratives may be about First Nations people who have passed away. If you need support, please see Contact & support.
Farangis is in her 80s and is legally blind, with only a small amount of peripheral vision.
A few years ago Farangis was living at home, with her son Robert as her carer, when she went to hospital with an infection.
Such admissions had been ‘recurrent’ ever since a failed medical procedure at the hospital. Normally she would have ‘a course of antibiotics’ then come home ‘after four to 10 days’. But this time, Robert said, the hospital ‘refused to discharge her’.
‘She hadn’t even been treated for her [infection], which can be life-threatening … She was arbitrarily detained. She had no other medical issues.’
The hospital said Farangis’s home support was insufficient for her needs. However Robert was in the process of getting her high-level care package ‘reinstated’. He believes the reason the hospital didn’t want her returning home is that they ‘didn’t want her to be coming back in’ for treatment during the pandemic.
Soon after, the hospital called Robert saying they ‘were going to transfer her to an aged home’.
‘And the basis of that was too many admissions … I disagreed, my mother disagreed. I believe that’s why they made the decision the following day to revoke my enduring power of attorney.’
Farangis stayed in hospital for months awaiting a tribunal hearing.
‘Her stay there was just absolutely abhorrent. And the duty of care that was provided to her was not existent … She was isolated in a room by herself. The room was dark because the overhead light was not working.’
The bed lifter didn’t work either and Robert continuously found the nurse bell ‘on the floor, under the bed’.
‘That was quite distressing … If you need help, that is your only lifeline. And yet there was wilful neglect towards her.’
Farangis told her son, ‘They treat you less than a human being. They treat you less than a dog.’
Robert said ‘on top of all the restrictive practices put in place’, doctors gave Farangis lots of ‘unnecessary medications that just knocked her out’. Some were ‘experimental drugs’, not yet approved.
‘She then came out in full-body hives. Pain.’
The head registrar told him, ‘It will be silly not to take this opportunity to trial her on a new diabetic drug.’
‘I said, “What are you doing with her? She’s drugged out. She’s asleep every day. You call that duty of care?”’
Robert believes doctors ‘sedated’ Farangis so ‘she couldn’t do a thing’ before the tribunal.
‘Submissions were fabricated … with basically misleading information. And it was all based around the fact that my mother had dementia, which she didn’t.’
The social worker who ‘authored’ the submissions never spoke to Farangis and went by ‘hearsay’, he said.
‘But [my mother] is a normal functioning person. She has full mental capacity.’
Farangis was also ‘provided paperwork which she could not read, due to her disability’.
‘They treated her as if she’s not a person. They say, “She’s legally blind, what does she know? There’s no point.” So they just totally ignore her.’
Robert said Farangis remains under the public guardian and in aged care because of ‘doctors and their abuse’.
‘She needs to come home with quality care … They’re just waiting for her to die.’
Disclaimer: This is the story of a person who shared their personal experience with the Royal Commission into Violence, Abuse, Neglect and Exploitation of People with Disability through a submission or private session. The names in this story are pseudonyms. The person who shared this experience was not a witness and their account is not evidence. They did not take an oath or affirmation before providing the story. Nothing in this story constitutes a finding of the Royal Commission. Any views expressed are those of the person who shared their experience, not of the Royal Commission.