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Southern Cross families' fury at 'gas chamber' spoof

By This Is Money
Updated: 03:09 EDT, 15 June 2011

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Relatives and campaigners for the 31,000 elderly victims of the Southern Cross scandal expressed outrage after a spoof article on a City website suggested gas chambers had been installed in care homes.

A screen grab of the Square Mile's article on Southern Cross

Satirical: SquareMile.com website has offended Southern Cross relatives

Faith Cox, whose mother Mary is a resident, said: 'I am appalled. How would they feel if it was their relative?'

The article was posted on the SquareMile.com website aimed at finance workers, which warns it carries satirical material.

Under the headline 'Gas chambers in care home "nothing to worry about"' it said: 'Southern Cross admitted that a "certain number" of elderly residents would have to be put to death but only, the company insisted, "if they complain or smell."'

Dr Ros Altmann, director general of Saga, said: 'Black humour can be funny, but this exceeds the bounds of common decency.

'If this is really what the City thinks about our elderly citizens, heaven help us.'

Southern Cross was brought to its knees after private equity firm Blackstone floated it on the stock market in 2006 with a controversial 'sale-and-leaseback' business model that proved incapable of surviving the slump.

Blackstone made £1bn profit in two years from its ownership of Southern Cross and its main landlord NHP.

A GMB spokesman representing 12,000 Southern Cross care workers said: 'Thick skinned City types just do not "get it" about the part they have played in bringing about the potential disaster facing the residents.'

Martin Deeson of the website's publisher Squared Up Media said: 'We are not satirising old people or carers and we would never want to upset them.

'We are satirising people in the City who treat old people's homes as raw material for profit, not as caring facilities.'

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