3 care home staff arrested for mistreating clients

(ANSA) - SAVONA, JAN 25 - Italian police on Monday arrested three female care home staff near Savona in northwestern Italy on suspicion of mistreating their elderly clients.
    The three operators, aged 48,58 and 64, are suspected of pushing and shoving, shaking, slapping and threatening their charges, police said.
    The allged mistreatment took place at the La Villa Care Home at Varazze.
    Police said the accused staff members carried on physically abusing residents despite the latters' weeping, pleas to stop and cries of pain.
    The probe lasted several months, during which police found numerous episodes of physical and verbal violence, judicial sources said.
    The staff member are also accused of ignoring their clients' calls for service and treatment.
    Police said the suspects threatened to tie clients to their beds and not to feed them if they disturbed them.
    "The conduct with which the arrestees are charged is of absolute gravity and harshness," said the local police command.
    The three women also took advantage of the frailty and vulnerability of their clients, police said.
    Police searched the homes of the suspects in Savona, Varazze and Genoa looking for clinical records and other information.
    La Villa's supervisor, Michele Assandri, said the arrests were a "bolt from the blue" and said "we had no inkling of what was going on". (ANSA).