Did nobody knock on her door?
Monday 25th July 2011, 12:30AM BST.
Welcome to the Middle Ages, write Peter Rhodes.
A woman living near Reading has died in hospital after being bitten by rats in her own home. She was old, disabled, bedridden and living alone.
Councils and government departments have all sorts of policies to deal with the weakest and most vulnerable members of society, such as this lady.
The snag, as you may have noticed, is that while the state has battalions of pen-pushers to draw up policy and write inclusive, multicultural and gender-neutral mission statements as per the European Commission on Human Rights, there is a distinct shortage of people knocking on doors to ask what is going on.
In this case, according to neighbours, a rodent invasion was made worse by fortnightly rubbish collections. Rats were swarming into bedrooms and climbing up through lavatories. This helpless old lady, crippled by a stroke, was repeatedly bitten.
Now that she is dead, the authorities are said to be “investigating her living conditions”.
So that’s all right, then.
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It’s very easy to blame others. What will you be doing tomorrow to help others? What responsibility will you shoulder to improve society? In the context of this article, have you knocked on the door? Has the journalist? I know I haven’t. That’s the real story.
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Well said Paul. There is a distinct lack of community in most of the UK and we are all to blame. It’s far too easy and lazy to blame ‘The Authorities’.
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Nice comment Neil and Paul but well over 20 years ago I spoke to the appropriate authorities about problems an elderley neighbour was having think the appropriate authorities responded DREAM ON.
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with the high profile news stories going on at the moment eg. amy, norway, hacking…this particular story will not lerave my mind…most shocking thing i’ve heard for a long time.
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Paul, Neil,Jane and Peter are all correct as it depends on the angle taken. If society was like in the 1950′s, there would be no need for the council to be involved as the neighbours would have taken care of it as a matter of course. As a child, I remember adults looking after unrelated elderly people.
Society has changed -for better or worse is for others to say. People will not do what was done in the 1950′s so the council has to become involved. In that case it is incumbent on those working for the council to be efficient and do the job properly. Here, Peter is correct because their are so many incompetent pen-pushers who are more concerned with meetings, away days and all the other nonsense and clueless as to how to organise the work to be done.
This poor lady joins the list with baby harmers, dead patients and all the other victims of bureaucracy which is more interested in procedures rather than result
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It’s a sad reflection on our society alright. Unfortunately it’s necessary for the authorities to have this “Army of Pen-Pushers” to draw up policies & procedures because, if they’re not seen to be acting in a responsible way, as seen in a court of law, they will fall victim to another army: That of the ambulance chasing parasites that are proliferating in our compensation culture.
It’s a sad fact that the family of this old lady can’t sue the authorities for negligence, but if they had intervened, but not to a suitable standard, then they’d be straight onto Compensations_R_Us.com
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