‘Give me back my freedom’: 93-year-old hits back at new state care home rules

A 93-year-old man who lives in the state’s care home is fighting back against “unacceptable” new rules that ban unaccompanied residents from leaving their wards after an elderly man went missing from the facility last month. Joseph Scerri has told the management of St Vincent de Paul Residence in a formal complaint that the new rules are “an encroachment on my personal liberty”. He said the decision was depriving him of his freedom of movement and was rekindling “unhappy memories” of when all residents at the home for the elderly were locked up due to the COVID-19 pandemic.  The nurses’ union has dubbed the restriction “inhumane”. “It seems [you are] trying to use a sledgehammer to crack a nut and applying a ‘one size fits all’ procedure. This is unacceptable to me as you are restricting my freedom,” Scerri told the management in his complaint against the blanket decision. The decision was part of a raft of new measures which were meant to step up security after the disappearance of an 83-year-old man from the home for the elderly a fortnight ago and an apparent suicide attempt by another resident a few days later. In a memo sent to all staff, senior management said that,  to...