SOME Victorian nursing homes have become “grey light zones” with prostitutes visiting elderly clients for sex.
Aged care and sex industry figures said it was a common practice in public and private nursing homes to sneak “escorts” in. Some homes set aside special sex rooms.
Anna Priamo, a nursing supervisor at an inner-city nursing home, said frisky patients who harassed nurses were referred to a doctor who might arrange for a prostitute to visit them. “It's not something we put in our brochure,” Ms Priamo said.
“(The residents) might ask for it or if they make smarmy comments to nurses it would be mentioned to the doctor and the doctor would ask them (if they wanted an escort to be arranged). Most homes would do it if asked. It is part of our job to make sure people are socially and sexually and emotionally happy and healthy,” she said.
The Victorian Association of Health and Extended Care, which represents 70 per cent of the state's aged care providers, has formed a taskforce to examine the issue.
“As the population ages, this issue of sexuality in residential aged care is coming to the surface,” chief executive Mary Barry said. “Residents have rights. But it is a difficult, sensitive and touchy area.”
Krystel, a Melbourne prostitute for 18 years, said she had been hired to visit nursing homes to see people with Alzheimer's and intellectual disabilities. “It's usually done very privately,” she said. “I mean, you don't go in with fishnet stockings and that sort of thing. You see clients during the day so it looks more discreet. You go to the person whose name you've been allocated by the head charge nurse.”
Despite risking potential six-year jail terms under the Prostitution Control Act for providing prostitution services without a licence, some nursing home managers routinely give the practice the green light.
Ms Priamo, who has seen prostitutes brought in for elderly residents about five times, said there was a good reason relatives and other residents were kept in the dark about the practice. “What children would like to know their parents are using a prostitute?” she asked. “So, who would want to put their parents in a nursing home that does that?” she said.
Gabby Skelsey, who works for Resourcing Health and Education in the Sex Industry, said the sex worker organisation received about six inquiries a month from nursing homes wanting to order a prostitute.
“Carers will ring us and we will refer them on,” Ms Skelsey said. Krystel said her nursing home clients had usually lost a partner and were not visited by family. She said they would hire her only a couple of times a year because they couldn't afford more.
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