By ANGELA GREGORY
A teenager with spina bifida who died from blood poisoning often verbally abused and drove away his CCS caregivers.
Jeremy Gregory, aged 18, died after developing an infected rectal abscess while living in a CCS flat at the Potter Masonic Children's Centre at Karaka.
At an inquest in Auckland yesterday, the centre supervisor Vivienne Hohaia said Jeremy had been living in the flat as a trial to see if he could eventually become independent. He had wanted to go flatting and it was agreed he could try it out under supervision and monitoring.
Vivienne Hohaia said Jeremy was capable of taking some care of himself although he needed coaxing at times.
When asked under cross-examination if it was possible Jeremy had suffered from a lack of supervision while living in the flat, Vivienne Hohaia said "that possibly came about".
"If he became abusive you'd have to go away and come back ... he'd tell you to 'sugar' off ... you wouldn't stand around and take more because this boy could be very crude, rude and derogatory."
She said caregivers had to learn how to coax Jeremy to fulfil the duties he had to do for himself.
When the question was put to her again, she said Jeremy did not appear to suffer from a lack of supervision.
Vivienne Hohaia said she could believe reports his flat often smelled of urine and faeces because he was incontinent, and was not surprised dishes and food scraps were left lying around.
When she saw Jeremy two days before he was admitted to Middlemore Hospital in January 2000, where he died a fortnight later, he had seemed "in a fine mood" although he had mentioned a sore stomach and had diarrhoea the next day.
Vivienne Hohaia said that when Jeremy became ill he always deteriorated quickly.
She did not accept Jeremy was significantly mentally retarded, as two psychiatric nurses had noted in a December 1999 letter from an earlier assessment.
In a statement she made to police in February 2000 Vivienne Hohaia said Jeremy was an attention seeker and could be very difficult.
"However once staff got to know him and understand him and learn not to take his verbal attacks personally, everyone coped very well with him. If there were times when they couldn't cope they would get me or another staff member."
She said Jeremy always knew his rights, and was encouraged to "do his cares".
She said a plan was set up for him in the flat but he was erratic.
"He was inconsistent in caring for himself and still needed reminding and supervision."
When Jeremy visited the spina bifida clinic at Starship hospital three days before he became seriously ill everything appeared to be normal, she said.
Denise Barron, an enrolled nurse who left the centre before Jeremy went flatting, told the inquest he had needed constant reminding and cajoling to do his personal cares.
The decision to put him in a flat was in her opinion foolhardy and cavalier.
Miss Barron said that after just six weeks at the Potter centre she was looking for another job as she found it dysfunctional and was concerned about occasional unsafe dispensing of medicines.
She rang the Nursing Council for advice and said she was told to "get out and run", and another enrolled nurse also decided to leave shortly after her.
Miss Barron said that although the caregivers at the centre did a "marvellous job" with cleaning and hanging out the washing they did not have a clue about nursing cares.
Disabled teen known to be abusive to carers
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