One would assume that an elderly shelter home led by a church as esteemed as the Presbyterian Church of East Africa (PCEA) would be a safe place for elderlies.
However, according to an investigative report done by BBC Africa, that seems not be the case for elderlies in Nairobi at PCEA Thogoto Care Home for the aged.
According to the expose done by BBC Africa, the staff members at the elderly home are secretly filmed doing horrific ordeals to the elderly like directly dumping food on the table with no plate, caning the elderlies and leaving medical conditions unattended.
In the disturbing expose released, an elderly woman is seen being caned by a staff member with a wooden stick on her bum. She is heard asking for forgiveness but one of the staff members continues to urge her co-worker to cane her for wondering of.
One of the undercover reporters films one of the staff member admitting that they cane other elderly men and women in the facility. The staff member states that there is a specific elderly man they cane because that’s the only way to calm him down, and that when he gets angry he becomes aggressive and can even throw stones.
Another mistreatment covered on the footage is that of medical negligence. A man who seems to have a serious skin condition is heard saying he is in pain and that he feels his body is burning up. He shows the undercover reporter his back and his serious skin condition.
The sick elderly man says that he gave Jane Gacheru, the care home manger money for him to be taken to hospital but wasn’t. He says that anytime he tries to remind her, she blows him off, saying that his family abandoned him there and he shouldn’t think she would be able to help her.
The man eventually sees a doctor six weeks later with money provided for by his family. He used to tell the undercover reporter before then that he was awaiting death. It is not known what condition the man has.
Another incident caught on the secret camera is of an elderly woman eating with her hands directly from the table with no plate because she could not use a spoon. One of the former care workers narrates that she was advised by other care workers not to help them because no one would help them the next day.
One of the care workers is heard saying that most of the elderlies have died of hunger and that many have died because they don’t want to make time to feed the elderlies. Most of the food is donated to the shelter but according to the undercover journalists, they saw the food being loaded into the car of a senior staff.
BBC showed some of the footage to principal secretary, Joseph Motari, who is in-charge of social protection and senior citizens affairs.
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Should we find anybody abusing, harassing, maiming these older persons, I can assure you the necessary punishment would be inflicted on whoever does that. We are going to do spot checks on various private homes and see whether they meet the standards.
Joseph Motari
BBC also shared the allegations with Jane Gacheru. She denied the allegations that the elderly were denied medical attention and that residents struggle to eat.
The home always observes the rule of law and remains guided by the Christian principles on which it was founded.
Jane Gacheru
The care home hosts up to 50 elderly men and women and was started by the Women’s Guild of the local PCEA but is now run independently. The number of elderly homes have tripled over the last decade and in the next 30 years will triple according to the United States Census Bureau report from 2020.
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