Showing posts with label whistleblowers. Show all posts
Showing posts with label whistleblowers. Show all posts

Tuesday, 17 February 2015

Hi, I haven't been writing on my blog for some time, partly because my mum died a really horrendous death at the hands of various professionals, and because I have tried all this time to get my voice heard above the deafening silence that pervades the corridors of complaint. I have fruitlessly pursued all avenues available to me and have had no success whatsoever. Quite the contrary: my attempts to gain some sort of retrospective justice for my mum has hit brick walls all around, with everyone from the police to the CQC and on to the Ombudsman. What a big surprise that is.


I have also been threatened to keep quiet, been obstructed by the issue of missing medical notes and had to hold onto my sense of rightfulness in the face of manifold lies from professionals. Absolutely no one in the Health Service, the Care Home where I put my mum for a second medical opinion when her own GP just shut down on her, or the police have had the decency or the courage to stand up and help me. Yes, I have had local politicians trying to help and various friends supporting me, but, you've guessed it, they have absolutely no power to exert over a system that slams down the shutters to protect neglect and abuse. Another huge surprise, yes?


Well, towards the end of my mum's life, I put her into respite care to get her access to another doctor.... or to try to do that, it might be more accurate to say. At that point all hell broke loose. I did not imagine that mum could be neglected and abused in just a few days in a Care Home with me going in there twice a day. But the level of abuse, neglect and medical negligence was astonishing. They accelerated her death and had her screaming to get away from them. They left her soaking in her bed,they fed her solid food which she couldn't swallow, they took four days to get a doctor to see her at all, inspite of her being delirious, but worst of all..... no, no, it's not the worst of it, I'll come to that later, the second worst thing of all was that they left her for a week with no medical treatment for what was an obvious UTI...... My mum. My lovely, innocent, adorable, naive, beautiful mum. My mum who had never, NEVER, done anything wrong in her whole life, ended up a completely powerless victim to professionals in her own home and then sustained massive abuse when I tried to get her help in respite care. And no one cares that she died a death in hell because of them. No one is interested.You see,no one wants to hurt professionals. It's a "given". The doors are shut.. and the only recourse open to me now is to go on TV. Imagine that. The only justice you can get in this shameful country is to go on television and tell the truth.


Lets talk soon, but please remember that there are many people here involved in this case, who did this to me and my mum, who don't want the truth to be told. Did you ever think that a cover-up requires collusion from professionals? You're right.... It is not JUST the perpetrators who are guilty in cases like this; it is the whole system that does everything it can, including threatening people like us, so that the truth gets hidden. Whenever you hear that something is supposedly being done to stop the cover-up-culture, don't believe it; it goes against human nature and basic group psychology to expect that abuse and neglect will be revealed and dealt with. Believe me. I know.

Saturday, 14 August 2010

Teachers who Bully (4)

So why did the female teachers in my Primary School stand by and do nothing?

We can example this to try to understand why people in all sorts of situations allow bullying. I think the fact that in this case they were women probably bears testimony to the era, yet still today are women disempowered in relation to men even though women have claimed respect in the intervening decades. But, in a sense, as we have discussed often in this blog, it is not so much "who", a woman or whomsoever, finds themselves subordinate in any given situation, it is simply the imbalance of power. I suppose it does a disservice to victims if I say that victims allow themselves to be bullied, but really in stark reality it is weakness that gives a green light to bullies. This is why children are in this position by default with adults, as are the elderly. But of course the fact that one is a timorous individual or non-confrontational, should not legitimise bullying behaviour, yet bullies, by their nature, are not going to restrain themselves on account of the virtues of others around them. Certainly not ! Bullies are parasitic upon weakness.

So, let`s go back to our two female teachers who egregiously let a sadist victimise two children of about 7 or 8 years old. ..... Well, to begin with, one of them was the man`s wife, so let`s take a look at her: as his wife she would have needs to try to maintain a good relationship with her husband. Her vested interest in her marriage would certainly take primacy over the protection of two children. How could she rail against him publicly? Undoubtedly his wrath would be vented upon her, either at that point, or in private. It may have caused a marriage breakup or at least strife for many days. Personally I would think, his wife being a mild little person, that she would be living her life with this man as someone she had to comply with,his being the Headmaster compounded this.
And of the other woman? Well, she had children in the school as well as having a good job near to home. I would imagine that to make a stand upon a matter such as this would have lead to her dismissal, personal upset and inconvenience. Given this, I would say that her intervention would be "impossible".

So these two individuals, in passive complicity with this bully, had more at stake personally than would rouse them to defend two small, terrified children. Doesn`t this perfectly explain how it is that we all can have such fears that we can become accomplices to the bullies around us? The pay-back is just too serious for us, so we let things go whilst knowing that what we see is immoral. I have certainly done this myself, though I`ll let myself off the hook in regard to not protesting at injustices in my school days !
"Good people stand by and do nothing." Well, of course this is not always the case, but it is often of personal risk to help a victim, and good people tend to have less courage because they are much less "in the animal" than the people they are up against. Often, good people have a more dominant sensitive side, are not so confrontational or aggressive, and find animal competitiveness unsavory.

What do we do then, when we know that we have turned a blind eye to something like this? I don`t know how these two women tried to square it with their consciences because I have never talked to them about it.(Suffice it to say that this incident, cited, was one of a catalogue of abuses...) I can only shrewdly surmise that the compartmental conscience would kick in with excuses such as "we were powerless to stop it", or maybe blaming the children,"if they had been honest and had confessed, this would not have happened", or a classic guilt avoidance would be to tell yourself that it wasn`t really as bad as you thought at the time ! Any or all of these things would enable these two teachers to continue their lives without conscience, the crime paling in their minds with every year that passed.

Of course, when people do make a stand, with any moral imperative, there has to be real courage. I am lucky (wow! what a thing to say!) that my father was a serious and sadistic bully and my mother a meek and well mannered person. Lucky?????? Am I mad, you might be thinking!!! No I am not mad, I can reassure you, it`s just that given that all of my childhood is unchangeable, I feel so privileged that I can analyse the crime scene (my home) of my father`s bullying, knowing all the background affecting the game-play. Just as I can understand as a witness the animal behaviours in my Primary School.


I`m coming back to this. Please chip in if you feel inclined !!! Let me know if you know of instances of bullying and where you have assessed the vested interest of people to not help the victim..."Protect those more powerful than you for your own sake" is the animal game.

Please see back to my other blogs titled: "Classrooms: Survival of the Fittest. "