Nursing home worker fired after calling a vulnerable dementia sufferer an ‘old c**t’ and ‘a paedo’

A GLASGOW nursing home worker who called a vulnerable dementia sufferer as an "old c**t" and "a paedo" has been sacked.

Foul-mouthed Marie McLaughlin abused the elderly resident at Whitecraigs Nursing Home in the Thornliebank area on the outskirts of the Scottish city.

She yelled in the man’s face in front of other residents and staff, and said to a colleague "he can f**k off, I'm not doing his room today".

On another occasion she said he "liked little girls" as well as telling a colleague that "he will be going upstairs soon enough and we won't have to deal with him".

McLaughlin, who was a domestic at the Glasgow home, stopped working at the facility following the incidents in June, last year.

She was employed by Mericourt Limited at the facility on Stewarton Road since December 2013, before being dismissed on June 24, last year.

The Scottish Social Services Council found her behaviour to be incompatible with working in the profession and struck her off the register for care workers last week.

It follows a hearing in Dundee earlier this year, where panel members reviewed the case before deciding what disciplinary action should be taken.

McLaughlin has until August 12 to appeal the decision to remove her.

In a report, the SSSC panel said she had "used highly inappropriate and abusive language towards a vulnerable service user".

They said: "Your actions were also aggressive and were considered by your colleagues to be intimidating.

"You used highly inappropriate language towards a vulnerable service user in the presence of other service users and members of staff.

"In doing so you failed to maintain the dignity of the service user.

"In addition you made a number of derogatory statements about the service user in front of your colleagues."

The social services bosses decided that McLaughlin's behaviour did "call into question your suitability to work in social services" and said they had no other option but to remove her from the register.

She did apologise to the man and to her employer, and is thought to have been under "considerable stress" in the time leading up to the incident.

The nursing home resident, according to the panel's report "could be difficult and he could be verbally abusive" and acknowledged that the worker's reaction "may have been provoked by his behaviour".

She was said to have shown a "loss of control" during the incidents, and put the man and other witnesses at risk of harm.