News

By Cathy Cooper

Social workers and care home managers are fighting a proposal to send a woman with learning difficulties back to a hospital where she alleges she was sexually abused.

In June 1994, a disciplinary hearing against a male nurse at the Ida Darwin hospital in Fulbourn, near Cambridge, cleared him of allegations that he sexually abused three women. One woman, who now lives in the Burwell home for people with learning difficulties, subsequently developed severe mental health problems.

The nurse has since taken early retirement on grounds of ill health.

The consultant psychiatrist at the hospital and the woman's GP want her readmitted to the Ida Darwin. But her social worker, managers of Burwell, and consultant psychotherapist Valerie Sinason, who assessed her before the disciplinary case, strongly oppose the move.

Sinason described the proposal as 'utterly awful'.

'Whether something is proven or not, the level of terror about a particular place when this happens is going to stir up memories of trauma and is proof to the person that they are not listened to.'

But a spokesperson from the Ida Darwin said: 'The decision is based on the fact that she requires psychiatric treatment and this is where her hospital is.' Sinason has written to the hospital to say the woman should not return there.

James Connolly, chief executive of Granta Housing Society, which runs Burwell, said: 'We will continue to emphasise the need to be sensitive.'

A final decision will be made this week.