I work in disabilities and I used to work for a company that was… Shall I say… Less than ideal.
We had a client who had a stroke and was completely paralysed on one side and completely non-verbal. They communicated by grabbing you and kissing you. It wasn't sexual in nature, it was no different to you giving someone a pat on the shoulder. As you can imagine, it made it difficult to work with them, especially when transferring them (i.e. bed to shower chair, wheelchair to toilet etc). Obviously, I didn't have an issue with the person, it was part of the job. They also really enjoyed food (I mean, why wouldn't you? You basically are stuck in a chair with no way of communicating, what else are you going to enjoy?). Because of this, they had gained a lot of weight and were probably around 120kg. They were somehow assessed by an OT as not just a stand up lifter, but a single person tranfer. A stand lift requires the person being transferred to be able to weight bear and hold onto the lifter with both hands. To say they are a single person stand transfer when they are completely paralysed on one side while they grab you with the working hand is absolutely insane. Not to mention how heavy they were.
Why were they assessed as stand lift? Because the company could argue that they only needed one person to transfer them. If they were sling lift, they needed two people to transfer them. It was clearly a cost cutting effort on the company's part. When the person was at day services (which was also run by the company), they had two people working with them. Probably because day services were brown-nosing company administration. They got the fun part of the job. As soon as the clients got home, suddenly the care budget dropped to sweet FA.
Anyway, because I care about both my and my client's safety, I always got help from my colleagues when I worked with this person at the house (which was rare, because I was a casual so I worked basically everywhere in the company). After a few times, one of my colleagues told me that people were in the office were bitching about the fact that I made them come and help me with that client, citing that they were a single lift. My response was “I'd rather they be shitty at me than having a shitty back. Besides, they're a 2 person job and whoever is assessing them as single person is obviously getting something from Employer to say they aren't.”
Anyway, that company basically fired me after coming back from a 6 week holiday. I was a casual, so after a horror shift, certain chores weren't done and my co-worker complained even though I told them how horrible the shift was. Fun fact, I caught them reading the newspaper. Employer emailed me saying that if I didn't reply to the email explaining myself, I wouldn't get any shifts. I still have yet to reply to that email. I rang the local union office about what happened and the lady said “I've been in this area for 3 months and already your employer has been mentioned enough for me to notice them.”
TLDR: Disability services company deliberately underestimated the personal care needs of a person to the point of risking the safety of both staff and client to save money and co-workers got shitty about me insisting on having an extra person with me to ensure safety. Then got mutually fired after a 6wk holiday. Fuck that employer.