Police launched an investigation into a private home for the elderly in Tai Po after residents were seen queuing naked or half-dressed on an open-air podium before their showers.

Wheelchair-bound male and female residents of Cambridge Nursing Home in Wan Tau Street were stripped by staff members under the skies before they were taken into an indoor shower area, according to footage taken by Chinese-language daily last month. A number of women covered their private parts with their hands.

The care home occupies three storeys of a building and serves elderly people who are physically unfit to take care of themselves.

A woman living in the next block told reporters that for three or four years she had witnessed workers arranging for the elderly to sit on toileting chairs on the podium, with their pants off. Some of the residents sat for two hours without being attended to.

Irene Luk Ngai-ling, co-founder of the home, told reporters yesterday that she was concerned about what the newspaper had reported.

"We are requesting every worker to submit a report," Luk said. "We have been teaching [the staff] for a decade at all meetings, and even require them to make pledges [to treat the residents properly], but those [staff] are really hopeless."

A male worker had been fired, while other related workers had been disciplined, the home said.

The Social Welfare Department said it would give police the relevant details to check if the alleged abuse constituted a crime.

The department is also investigating. Officers may revoke the home's licence if it is found to have violated its tenants' privacy.

A police spokesman said the Tai Po district crime squad was investigating.

This article appeared in the South China Morning Post print edition as: Police look into elderly 'left naked in open air'

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