Retirement home workers charged
Former employees at a retirement home have been charged with filming and photographing residents in humiliating situations.
The prosecution said on Monday they were seeking sentences and fines for four former staff at the home in Entlisberg in canton Zurich accused of violating the pensioners’ privacy.
A fifth former employee who photographed a sleeping resident has already been ordered to pay a fine of SFr500 ($485) and SFr1,500 in lieu of a prison term.
Following a complaint, Zurich police announced in February that they had opened an investigation into the five employees who had allegedly filmed elderly residents naked, mistreated them and stolen from them.
Three of the five were immediately dismissed from their jobs. The other two had either already left the home or resigned before the scandal broke.
More than 100,000 staff look after some 85,000 elderly people in residential care in Switzerland. The organisation that represents the country’s care institutions emphasised that this case was an isolated one which did not reflect the good standard of care delivered by its members.
The Entlisberg home, which accommodates 330 residents, was inspected twice at the end of last year, both times on scheduled visits, but nothing untoward was found.
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