I am shattered.
I couldn’t sleep last night. No idea why, I just couldn’t. I just lay there watching the clock tick by wondering if I was ever going to get to sleep… but didn’t.
So when the alarm finally went off I was already awake and jumped fell out of bed and ran crawled to bathroom to make myself pretty, which, by the way, took too long!
Finally left the house and got the office around 8.20am. Dropped Brad off (did you know he’s a working boy now… for the same charity I work for… today was his first day!), sorted some stuff out in the office, then drove off to Burry Port for a course.
The course was “The Protection of Vulnerable Adults from Abuse” and completely useless for me in my job. I suppose parts of it were useful for training the volunteers but even so, we’re about supporting families who have at least one child under five and have very very little to do with vulnerable adults. Oh well.
Due to the lack of sleep at one point I actually zoned out and came round midway through a conversation about giving people medication. The question was “Is it abuse to give a patient medication with their knowledge?” A woman a couple of seats away from me said was saying that no, it wasn’t abuse and no one was disagreeing with her. So cue me waking up and realising what was being said.
“I don’t know if it’s abuse but it’s definitely illegal!” I said.
“No it’s not, it’s acceptable in some cases,” replied the woman, “if you’ve got a patient causing a problem then you can crush a sedative into a cup of tea!”
“It’s only acceptable if the patient has been sectioned and the drugs are on a drugs chart and even then it would be injections not tablets and someone would be restraining the patient.”
“Well if the patient can’t swallow tablets then it would be acceptable.”
“No, it’s still unacceptable and still illegal! Tablets are made a certain way so they react to the different parts of the body they encounter! Tablets in a hard sugar-like coating are like that so they don’t start to dissolve in the mouth or throat. All tablets are different!”
At this point the trainer realised I knew a little bit about what I was talking about and was smiling and nodding.
“So is it abuse?” he asked.
“Yes. It’s abuse and it’s a crime!” I said.
“Surely if the patient can’t swallow tablets it’s acceptable!” insisted the woman.
“No!” I said, “if they can’t swallow tablets then the medication would be in liquid form and administered orally or by injection and even then it would be with consent! Never without them knowing!”
She huffed a little but before either of us could say anymore the trainer butted in and told us that yes, it was abuse and yes, it was illegal!
So this was early on in the day and I’d already made an enemy. After lunch (which was lovely) we had to split into two groups and we given six headings and cards with short paragraphs on describing scenarios.
The headings were:
1. Yes it is abuse.
2. No it is not abuse.
3. No it is not abuse but it is a crime.
4. We need more information (not official)
5. We need an investigation (official)
6. It is not a crime or abuse but is bad practice.
So we each had a set of cards and had to take it in turns to read out a card and then discuss in the group which heading it went under but the final decision went to the reader.
We each have a go and then it comes back to me. This was my second scenario and it read as this: “Mavis and Eric have been living together for over 60 years. One day Mavis confesses to her local priest that they are actually brother and sister and have been having a sexual relationship while living together. Is this abuse?”
As it was my card I had to open the debate to which I said “if they are both consenting then it’s not abuse but it is criminal so should go on pile 3.”
We had a short debate about if they both consented to the sex or not and would we need more information so should it go in pile 4? The trainer said to take the card as read and the card implied (or so we felt) that they both consented so it was a crime not abuse.
Then up piped Mrs Illegal-Medication-Giver who said “But they are brother and sister! It must be abuse!” and so the debate began! Or rather her rant began. There were 11 of us in the group. 8 of us said it was a crime not abuse. 2 said they were unsure because they didn’t know enough about the law and then she piped in with how it was definitely abuse!
Anyhoo, the final decision was down to me as it was my card so I stuck on the pile for crime but not abuse. And she moved it to abuse! I picked it up and said “sorry but the final choice is mine and it’s criminal not abusive!” but didn’t point out that the majority of the group agreed with me and just replaced on the crime pile.
The day carried on with her giving me the look of death now and then but not arguing if I spoke and thankfully we finished early so I was too late getting to the sign language course.
After we learnt about ages and time we learnt to count to 1million and we then given stories to sign. First off the teacher said she was bored with the stories and we should colour them a bit.
So I did…
Mary, in her green dress and black shoes and black bag left the house at 9.30am and went to the post office. Once in the post office she opened her back, pulled out a gun and got £1million of the post office man. She then ran to Tesco and bought 1million lottery tickets and was caught by the police at 10.05am.
All fun!
Brad made up his story but someone else went before him and basically did the story he’d already got set up in his head. *snigger* he wasn’t impressed!
So now, I’ve had m’ tea and am now going to curl up with the Brad and try and get some sleep while watching a fill-um!
TTFN x
