A CARER told how she has been spat on and verbally abused in the street since care homes were criticised by the Prime Minister for their response to the Covid-19 pandemic.

She is now pleading with the public not to treat her and her colleagues as ‘the bad guys’, as she revealed she was ‘terrified’ of wearing her uniform outside of work because of the way carers are being treated.

The carer, who works at a care home in Bridport and wishes to remain anonymous, believes the abuse she and her colleagues have received is due to comments made by Boris Johnson, in which he stated care homes didn’t follow procedures as well as they could have during the pandemic.

She said: “We are scared and tired of the abuse from the public. We work so hard to keep your family fed, clean, happy and safe.

“During the first few weeks of the pandemic, I was walking home from work one evening and a drunk man spat on me. People in public give carers horrible looks, totally avoid us, making it very obvious that they believe every care assistant has the virus.

“I have been told not to wear my uniform outside of work because we are terrified of what could happen. Bridport is supposed to be a friendly community. Truthfully, carers are looked at as scum of the earth.

“Care assistants have always been looked down on; we have been called low skilled, lazy and abusive to residents, which are all completely false.

“Another reason for why this is happening is because Boris Johnson has blamed care assistants for the second wave of the pandemic as we apparently were not following guidelines, when the truth is that we didn’t have any to follow.

“We were left to deal with this ourselves.”

She is calling for people to support each other during this difficult time.

“We may have a bad name, especially during this pandemic,” she said, “but us carers keep your relative safe, well fed, clean and medicated. We do our best to ensure your relative is well cared for.

“We love our jobs, but we don’t deserve the hate from the public. Care work can be challenging and sometimes us carers are all our residents have, we are like a second family to them.

“All our tears and sweat being put in this job just to be humiliated by the Government, it’s really heart breaking to see.

“During this time, we need to support each other. I hope people can realise that care assistants are not the bad guys.”