Care workers

[benjamin1945 16,160]

what heartbreaking scenes on tv recently about the treatment of residents in Care homes,i believe that in many cases the owners are making alot of money by employing uncaring people who should"nt be in the job.that is not to say that many who do the job are excellent.and i admire these dedicated people,they ought to be paid good money,but while the owners continue to pay low wages and rake the profits,it won"t improve,and the residents will continue to suffer.

[Bilboro-lad 294]

Personally, I'd rather be in a box than a care home. Where are the families? Oh yeah, they are holidaying in the Med.

[benjamin1945 16,160]

WELL SAID,Bilbora-lad,i completly agree,many other communities could show us a thing or two in caring for your older family members,especially the "Asians"

[FLY2 10,108]

Re #2 Not always the case, some folk don't live near older relatives, and every body deserves a holiday.

[catfan 14,793]

Care home are springing up everywhere, look at the number of pubs that have been demolished to make way for a new care home. Whilst the staff are paid peanuts the owners, usually doctors, are getting rich off the backs of for want of a better term, slave labour.

[darkazana 1,736]

As basfordred says, not always as black and white as others have put it. Some residents may not even have any family or choice. Even choosing a home is not so easy, as they always put on a good show when visitors are around.

I have worked in a residential home and a nursing home and know what goes on behind the scenes, though I never witnessed any actual abuse.

At my last job, the residents paid £3000 per month and from my side as cook, I know that they are given the cheapest cuts of meat and food. I had to feed 19 residents 3 meals a day with a budget of under £300 per week.

The height of stinginess was at Christmas when I was not allowed to buy ingredients to make a Christmas cake, the owners then "forgot" to buy a Christmas cake and produced a cheap, garish sponge and cream cake, most of which went in the bin, particularly as it only lasted 2 days before the cream went off!

Another example was when the 3 apple trees were stripped of their fruit and it was taken away to the owners house, not even an offer of any for the kitchen. The owner of this residential home was English by the way!

I vowed I would never put my parents in a care home, but since my dad died it is more difficult to care for my mum who is becoming increasingly immobile. She is also costing the NHS a fortune in ambulance call outs, which we cannot prevent. We have offered to have her to live with us, which she has refused, along with most other help. I fear the day will come where professional care is the only option.

[Bilboro-lad 294]

Well something has to change as the NHS is bust. BTW, what does race have to do with this thread?

[benjamin1945 16,160]

#4#6 I take your points,basfrordred and darkazana,and i realise sometimes our elders" need more care than we can give.

[FLY2 10,108]

I certainly couldn't do it. I've an acute lack of patience.

[piggy and babs 544]

a few years before my mumdied we had to make the desision to put her in a care home for her own safty she had alzimers before she whent in we looked at several placers she even went for restvite at four befor we made the final desision of were she would go personlyin the end she went to braybrook house in burton joyce it was a realy good home. the staff were great she was still there untill she had to go into hospital just before she died.she had really needed a nursing home rather than a care home by that stage we went to the home at all times of the day and night the staff always were helpful and careing what evertime you went the home ant its clients were always clean tidy and fresh smelling. sortly after mum died this home closed down and all clients had to move to other homes why because of the new regulations saying all clients must have there own room and bathroom.. most clients did have there own rooms but some had to shear a two bed room most of them had know each other all there lives and ea room njoyed shearing. but 2 of the homes we refused to let mum go to because of the lack of carein the home while she was having a few days restvite care remained open. while mum was in her final years we saw both good and bad in homes. for various reasons we as a family were unable to look after her and give her the 24 hour care she needed at that time if her life. but we know we took the time and effort to find the best place for her needs.

[benjamin1945 16,160]

YOU ARE PROBABLY in the majority mate,thats why those who can do it,deserve suitable rewards.

[Bilboro-lad 294]

Well how did previous generations manage? The rise of the care home is a new phenomena. Who remembers Billy Liar?

[benjamin1945 16,160]

I THINK for what i remember, most families looked after their own,

[StephenFord 866]

I have extremely mixed feelings about this. I knew a family who owned a care home (with their own living quarters incorporated). They were extremely caring, but making ends meet was a constant struggle. Reason? The burden of new (uncosted) government regulations regarding, for example, staff to resident ratios. Paying the rates that they would have liked to pay (to get the sort of staff commitment you need) was simply not possible without pushing the fees through the roof. As a result, unmotivated staff would ring in "sick" at short notice. Agency staff would have to be hired in - if they could be obtained - and if not, the owners (who were very "hands-on" people anyway) just had to fill the gap. I guess it all depends on the scale of the operation - but who wants their nearest and dearest to live in a care "factory"? Small, family-like scale is what people want and need. And, of course, vacant rooms shoot a hole in any financial planning.

[littlebro 234]

There is no single problem and single simple answer but, when people move into a care home they should be 'cared for'. The clue is in the name.

Personally, I do not want to be a burden on my son & daughter but a certainly do not want to go into a 'God's waiting room'.

I know old folk can become difficult and cantankerous but if a care worker cannot deal with patients with dignity and respect they should not be in the job at all.

I hope though that the news this week does not stigmatise the whole care home concept as I am sure that there are many adequate homes out there staffed by very caring personnel.

[benjamin1945 16,160]

Unfortunatey little bro" it mostly comes down to one or another, and i would prefer to be a "BURDEN"

[FLY2 10,108]

My mum died in 1995, her house was sold for 56K. After paying care home fees back to the council, I was left with just over 7K.

So much for my inheritance. What was most galling was the fact that we weren't very close.

[LizzieM 9,510]

Re posts 12 and 13 .... Years ago families remained in close proximity of one another, plus folk didn't live as long as we are doing nowadays. My maternal grandmother lived in the Meadows and had a son and 2 daughters living on the same street, with the other two children living within 5 miles. She was able to remain in her home until she went into hospital where she passed away aged 73, which back in 1963 seemed a good old age. My paternal grandmother lived with her spinster sister for 30 years after becoming a widow. When her sister passed away my grandmother moved in with her daughter, my aunt, who lived alone. She was there for less than a year before she had a heart attack and died, aged 90.

My Dad lived on his own for 25 years after my Mum died aged 64. I lived over a 100 miles away but my brother lived fairly close by. 10 years ago my husband and I decided to move back to Nottingham to be close to Dad, leaving our 2 boys down south. I went to see Dad every day, cleaning, shopping, gardening and giving him a lot of my time. When we wanted to go away we made sure my brother was going to be around, although he worked out of Nottingham. It was always a worry for me and I phoned him every day from wherever I was.

Last March, following Cancer treatment that my husband had undergone, we booked a month's trip to the USA, only to discover that my brother was going to be away for one of the weeks. The only option we had was to put Dad into a care home. We looked around for respite care and found a local one that was willing to take him. He wasn't happy about leaving his home but we told him it wasn't for long and he'd be back. He was in the home for 5 weeks in total during which time he was taken to A & E with a cut arm ....... he did fall a lot. We got back to Nottingham and I was in the process of trying to get extra help from Social Services when he had another fall and was admitted to QMC where he passed away 9 days later.

Now I could beat myself up for booking a holiday and putting him in a care home but I won't do that. I did my best for my Dad and I also had my husband to consider. Plus, over the years my kids have missed out on a Sunday roast, which they remind me about often!

[darkazana 1,736]

We were watching "Protecting Our Parents" the other night, as it very close to home at the moment, hoping for some ideas on how we can help Mum.

I came to the conclusion that my Mum is a very small drain on the NHS, the lady who was featured had called the ambulance 83 times in a week! Mainly because she had slipped down her bed and was uncomfortable, her husband was too frail to help her. they are still at home and now have 11 carer visits a day!

I am still waiting for social services to get back to me about aids for Mum in the home, one of them being a key safe for emergencies.

Today I have had several distressing calls, as she was in pain, and I cannot get there. The upshot being that the ambulance men have now had to force their way into her home to take her back to hospital, something that would not have happened if Social services had got their finger out! Mum now has an unsecured house until someone can get out to it!

[benjamin1945 16,160]

I really do feel for you darkazana" i had similar problems with an Uncle some years ago.

[Bilboro-lad 294]

Well something has to change - that's a mathematical fact. The health budget is falling, the number of oldies is about to go ballistic with us baby boomers, more procedures and expensive drugs are available than ever, life expectancy is ever rising. It has to stop somewhere. it just cannot continue. Personally I think they'll have a split tier system. Basic cover will be NHS, any special stuff will all be private.

[Rob.L 1,090]

I've seen this from most angles.

As a lad, we had my maternal grandmother living with us for a few months every year. She was 'passed around' between her three daughters, spending time with each but having no proper home (she had to move out of her rented home after her husband died a few years before). As ours wasn't the biggest of houses and there were four kids still at home, she had to share a bedroom with my sister and myself. Later, after the others had moved out, I used to earn the occasional shilling by doing her washing.

Moving on to the 1990s, and my widowed dad wouldn't move out of his house despite increasing frailty. So most weekends, and some weekday evenings, I was round there, with my wife, to help clean, cook, etc.

Into the 2000s, and we're now looking after him and the mother in law (separately, of course!). Our daughter's early-years weekends mainly consisted of sitting around with one or the other as we cleaned, gardened, etc. Dad passed away in 2004, and we then spent even more time looking after MiL. (Her other children were mysteriously absent most of the time).

About the time she passed away (and was lovingly grieved-for by the invisible kids at her funeral, especially now that there was no work for them to do and once they knew she'd left them money in her will), her 87 year old ex-husband came back to the UK from Canada. We tried to have him live with us, but with a teenager in the house, and me having a full-time job, it simply wasn't working for any of us. He tried various care homes, some better than others, and is now in a care home owned by his niece.

He loves it there, and we can, after all those years of graft and running around like headless chickens, relax. The fees are very reasonable, not much more than he gets from his various pensions, so he will have enough cash to keep him there for another decade or two.

[colly0410 1,181]

As my wife & I don't have any kids we'll be left to get on with it I presume, & if/when we can't look after ourselfs anymore shipped off to an OAP home somewhere & flog our house to pay the fees. When the house money runs out what then? They'll probably have a new way to sort the problem out by then, colt 45's..

[MelissaJKelly 2,121]

Watched the show Protecting Our Parents on BBC2. Broke my heart. Will never let my parents end up dumped into a care home, some of them just can't be trusted. Would rather care for them myself and give something back to them. It'd be the least I could do.

[darkazana 1,736]

We had a lady on site a couple of weeks ago, she arrived with her husband, they were new to the caravanning game. Her husband couldn't stay as he had to go home to care for both their parents, but he came over every now and again to see his wife. And this is how it is for them. they have to take separate holidays, as someone has to be on call for their parents.

I found that incredibly sad, that at the time when they should be enjoying their life together they are being forced apart in this way.