Must


stop


drinking



coffee!

While I entirely appreciate that a court case is the best way of determining culpability, if you ever think I whine too much about quality of care for disabled people, consider the following.

An excerpt From The Age, November 3, 2009:

Four Charged Over Betts Killing

(I'm not including the details, they are distressing and not relevant to my gripe. Suffice to say it's a murder trial and this woman has been charged with being an accessory to murder.)

Godfrey in contrast was red-eyed and cried as she applied for bail, which was rejected.

Dressed in black and with a ponytail, she said she was not a flight risk and was due to start a new job today as a disability carer. She said she was filled with fear over what had happened. ''I did not say anything as I was too scared,'' she said.

The point being, that if you ever need a job where the employers won't care where you've been and don't care where you're going, you can get work with disabled people. Going into the homes of people who often live alone, are isolated and dependent on *you*.

And if I may be cynical for a moment, it has the added advantage that working with disabled people tends to get you brownie points if you do need to provide proof of good character/good prospects of rehabilitation at any point.

I know there's much more to the story than this, there may well be extenuating circumstances, but the care industry really needs an overhaul. A good employer will surely look for more than a criminal records check, which only provides information on convictions, before employing someone for this sort of work. I find it hard to believe that a reasonably conducted job interview would not have uncovered some anomalies in this woman's presentation of herself. If not her impending court case, a work record and CV that would have reflected what appears to have been a very erratic lifestyle.

Yep, overhaul needed.