The amount of security officers guarding entrances and exits at the St Vincent de Paul home has tripled since the disappearance of a resident in June.
Times of Malta were informed by Active Ageing Minister Jo Etienne Abela that almost 40 security officers had been added to the already present 20.
The Minister said that the emergency measures had to be established with urgency following the disappearance of Carmelo Fino, the 83-year-old dementia sufferer who escaped during the middle of the night.
Fino was caught on CCTV leaving the Luqa home at 3am on June 28th. Since then, four security officers, two carers and a nurse have been suspended on half pay upon the instructions of the Public Service Commission.
The minister also dismissed with ToM the claim about a misdiagnosis of Fino’s dementia on the part of the doctors. He said that misdiagnosis is not part of the blame apportioning process.
The incident, he said, was not a system failure because there are standard operating procedures which the inquiry found had not been followed.
“The home needs modernisation and rejuvenation. The process started by my predecessors and it’s continuing,” he said.
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