Shocked doctors raised the alarm about a Canberra nursing home after an elderly resident battling dementia arrived for emergency treatment with maggot-infested wounds. When the man’s distressed family confronted the nursing home, the then-manager reasoned that maggots “were good for wounds” because they “cleaned them out”. Peter Tunnecliffe, 77, was a resident at the Southern Cross Care facility in Garran when he was sent to Canberra Hospital last December for the treatment of cancer lesions on his face and scalp. Senior hospital staff were so disturbed by the discovery of maggots in the lesions, they took it upon themselves to lay a complaint with the federal government’s aged care watchdog.
