Carers help nursing home residents buy sex

For staff at some nursing homes, putting residents in touch with prostitutes is standard practice.

Sygeplejersken, the trade magazine for nurses and carers, recently surveyed 13 nursing homes and found that many nursing home residents still need to have their sexual desires satiated and staff are willing to help out.

‘Our policy is that we generally try to help satisfy our residents’ needs,’ said a nurse from Holmegårdsparken nursing home in Charlottenlund, outside of Copenhagen.

In the city of Skanderborg in Jutland, the use of prostitutes was common, according to Merete Baastrup, manager of the Kildegården nursing home.

‘We have one resident who has been using the services of a prostitute for some time,’ she said.

Prostitution is legal in Denmark, but whether nursing homes are permitted to facilitate contacts is unclear, which leaves it up to municipal authorities to decide whether to allow staff in nursing homes to help satisfy residents’ sexual needs.

In Skanderborg and Århus, staff were empowered to help residents, but in Århus, it was recommended that other options were considered before resorting to prostitutes.

However, in Copenhagen, an anti-prostitution campaign from 2006 prohibited the use of prostitution in nursing homes.

Judith Rosenkrantz, a sexual therapist and former nursing home superintendent, advised that it was important to take the matter seriously.

‘If an elderly person does not have his or her needs satisfied, they can become aggressive and resort to violence,’ she said.

She added that it was often male and mentally handicapped residents who needed more bodily contact.

‘Sexual intercourse is rarely what they want. A bit of cuddling, masturbation or a dildo can do the trick,’ she explained.

Despite a report by the Social Welfare Ministry in 2001 recommending that different solutions for satisfying the sexual needs of the elderly and mentally and physically handicapped be looked at, the stance was clear among Copenhagen’s city councillors.

‘No matter who the target group is - whether it is the mentally handicapped or the elderly, we cannot accept prostitution,’ said Ikram Sarwar, a city councillor.

He also pointed to studies that showed the detrimental physical and psychological consequences of prostitution.

‘At the end of the day, it is exploitation of another person to satisfy one’s own needs,’ he stated.

On the other hand, Karen Jespersen, the welfare minister, felt it was permissible for the elderly to frequent prostitutes.