chapter 17

The carers and workers all lived in the house annexe at the back of the school. Here the rooms were all of a moderate size and they all had a view of the gardens and the woods beyond.
There were four double bedrooms upstairs, and another downstairs. There was a sitting room, dining room, bathroom they could use as well as a small kitchen with French doors looking out onto the patio. They even had their own entrance to the building.
A door in the living room led out into the main hall, where most of their clients lived. The room was truly large, with double height ceilings. At one end of the room, there was a balcony. There was a seating area on the balcony, that allowed the carers to relax while still watching their clients.
Under the balcony was a library.
As mentioned before the old school kitchen led off the main hall. This was where all the clients' meals and feeds were prepared. At the other end of the main hall, where madeleine had entered the building was the entrance hall, which had a wet room, complete with a bariatric hoist. A small modern extension had plenty of wide access toilets, but most of the clients were too big to use them.
There was another large schoolroom off the entrance hall, but, this was used for only very special clients. Madeleine was not allowed in.
There were lots of storerooms also leading off the entrance hall. Once they had held children's books, pencils, paint and paper. Now there was a linen cupboard, a medical room, equipment storeroom and sluice.
The laundry was done in one of the old workshops that were actually under the school. Probably the best place for it because there were three washers and three tumble dryers going almost constantly. The noise was deafening when they all started their spin cycles.
Another of the worships had a fully stocked gym, but it was a long time since anyone had used that equipment, judging by the amount of dust on it.
The whole building stood in it's own grounds, barely visible from the lane below and although there were houses nearby, none of them were visible from the house, making everything very secluded.
Perfect for an experimental medical facility with dubious morals.

Madeleine was given a new uniform. It was about two sizes too big, she was told she would grow into it. There was no point of giving her anything smaller.
She was expected to take care of the other patients as well as her husband. In turn, she got help from other careworers as well.
Tim was small in comparison to some of them. One was so massive, his fat overflowed his king size bariatric bed. However, he also had massive sores because he couldn't move himself and the pressure relieving mattress struggled to cope. One of his legs had lymphoedema, making it nearly twice the size of the other.
Many of the patients had complications just because of their sheer size and poor diets. Over half of them had type two diabetes, hypertension, heart problems, breathing problems such as sleep apnaoea. None of them could get out of bed unassisted, so they had issues with continence, muscle wasting and such. The battle against them getting bed sores was constant. They all had to change their position every two hours whether they liked or not, day and night.
There was only five patients in the great hall, but it still made Madeleine and the other carers' work difficult.
There was one compensation... food and plenty of it!