So I started my new job as an activities assistant in a care home a month ago (just doing activities such as painting and going on days out with the elderly in a nursing home) and in my training last week I was told as I was pregnant not to work in the dementia unit by a very superior person in this big company. This morning my manager told me to go down the dementia unit on my own and go up to people and chat with them! No information was given on who could lash out etc. I went down there and a woman grabbed my arm and wouldn’t let go and another woman hit a nurse in her stomach which made me very uneasy with my big pregnancy belly! The nurse then realised I was pregnant on the ward and told me I should categorically not be doing what i was without full supervision and so I went to reception and two members of management for different departments there reassured me that I was not to go down there especially on my own and if I wasn’t comfortable that’s my choice and my baby comes first.

When my manager came back she literally screamed at me and said I was ridiculous and making a fuss over nothing. I literally cried in the toilet after because I love working with dementia patients and if it’s one on one with someone who’s not got risky behaviour that’s fine but that’s not what she wants me to do.

I don’t want to put my baby at risk but I feel like I can’t say no or ask for it to be made safer.

Literally don’t know what to do, any advice? (Other pregnant women there aren’t allowed to go down to that ward, but my manager is only a manager of me and isn’t following their rules)