Sengkang General Hospital nurse accused of re-using elderly patient’s soiled diaper since “it’s not too dirty”

A nurse at Singapore’s newest hospital, the Sengkang General Hospital, has been accused of re-using an elderly patient’s soiled diaper since it was “not too dirty”.

According to local publication RedWire Times (RT), 36-year-old Ms Mo brought her elderly mother to the hospital after she complained of giddiness on Christmas Eve, 24 Dec 2018. Ms Mo’s mother, a 67-year-old retiree, was diagnosed with an infection and was warded.

Ms Mo and her sister visited their mother the next day, on Christmas, and their mother complained that her buttocks were itchy. Ms Mo told reporters: “When we removed her trousers to check, we saw that her buttocks was red and swollen. What was more shocking was that there was feces there.”

The sisters quickly alerted the nurse on duty who helped wash the elderly patient’s buttocks. She then allegedly proceeded to re-use the same soiled diaper for the patient. Ms Mo said: “I questioned the nurse and she said that the diaper was ‘not too dirty’.”

Ms Mo brought the issue up to the head nurse who allegedly apologised. Despite this, the situation did not change, according to Ms Mo: “My mother stayed there for 2 days and complained that she couldn’t take it, so we switched her to a different hospital.”

RT reports that Sengkang General Hospital is investigating the matter and that it is in touch with the family.

Sengkang General Hospital, which was opened in August last year, is under SingHealth – Singapore’s largest group of healthcare institutions that consists of four public hospitals, five national specialty centres and a network of nine polyclinics: