DESPICABLE

Last week, on August 10, a story played out in one of the homes on Katherine Road, closest to the exploding Sunrise Propane Industrial depot, that must have Florence Nightingale spinning to a boogie beat in her grave.
J.P. Pampena, who lives in a bungalow on that street, is the blind 52-year-old father of a daughter with cerebral palsy. This girl is totally dependent on the help of others, for all of her needs, including personal safety. She is unable to swallow and is therefore fed through a tube. Because she is unable to swallow, she needs constant suctioning to clear her mouth of her own saliva. Since Pampena and his wife are not able to provide the round-the-clock care their daughter needs, there is always a nurse present in their home. On the Sunday night of the explosion, the nurse in the home was a newly-assigned woman who had only been there a couple of nights.
Pampena looked first to the nurse for an explanation of the noise assualting his ears, since she was already at the front door. Then he expected to be able to look to her for help in getting his daughter safely out of the house which he thought might be blown up at any moment. The problem was, the nurse expected the same outcome and so she ran past the frightened father to retrieve her purse. Declaring herself unwilling to die there, she shoved the daughter's suction apparatus into the father's hands and ran to her car. Pampena says he heard her squealing the tires in her rush to escape the danger. He saw his wife and daughter safely out to their driveway, then returned to the house to phone his mother who lives close by. He wanted to alert her to the danger before he joined his family in their flight to safety. On a CBC radio interview this morning, he described how his daughter, incapable of speech, was making sounds he said were panicked cries. He tells of how he kept assuring her they were on their way to safety and that everything would be OK. You have to wonder if the coward who abandoned this little family gave them even a second thought as she fled the scene. You have to wonder if anything disturbed her sleep that night, or if she had no problem at all getting a good rest. The latter would seem to be the more likely scenario, given her clear lack of concern for them when she bolted for her car.
This home care nurse was arranged for by Community Care Access Centre, whose acting executive director says he is unable to comment on her behaviour. Pampena has been told this compassionate caregiver was dismissed, but surely one has to ask if that is enough. Hopefully, there will be further action taken against this malfeasant who violated a trust that should be held by her as sacred. If the helpless can not depend on a nurse for their lives, s/he has no business pretending to be worthy of their trust. This woman should be barred from nursing anyone, anywhere, ever again. Her name should be blazoned across the front page of every newspaper, as should her picture. She brings new meaning to the word "despicable".