Traumatized by a court-ruled stay, an ex-patient at the nation's only publicly-funded rehabilitation center is demanding that greater scrutiny be placed on attendants at the institution.

The young man claims he became aware of the mistreatment of patients at Sandilands Rehabilitation Centre (SRC) after a court ordered he undergo a two-week evaluation there.

He described to The Tribune an environment where patients were subject to inhumane conditions at the mercy of dispassionate attendants and often times the victims of neglect, and verbal and physical abuse.

He said: "They have on their sheets, on the pillows, 'we care and love our patients', but some of the people working there do not share that view. Some patients there who are handicapped and incapable of even cleaning themselves, and there are attendants there that simply don't do their job. If a patient messes himself up they would just leave him and wait until the next attendant comes on shift for them to deal with it. Sometimes what happens is other patients would help bathe off patients that can't help themselves."

Attendants at SRC, he claims, were poorly supervised. Of the night staff, he said: "It's like a party at night. Some don't even stay on their job, they just check in and then leave." He claimed that there were occasions when some, who did show up, were "either drunk or drinking, or even high.

"They are supposed to be taking care of people who are trying to recover from alcohol and drug abuse but they are the ones who need rehabilitation. They are coming to work wasted or with their personal problems and they take it out on the patients."

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