Patience, Patients!

Viv has now left the ward at The Lister. In a way that's a bit of a shame; there were three other ladies in her bay, and they'd started to strike up a bit of camaraderie. One of them lives in Harmer Green Lane, Welwyn, where Viv lived when she was very young; this lady said something to me that I was rather surprised by, and very flattered.

She said how patient I am coping with Viv, with her (hopefully temporary) disabilities.

I found this surprising because I don't always feel very patient when I am doing caring things; I'm often feeling very frustrated, wondering 'why us?', and I feel as if I'm often shouting at her to do things the way the physio or other specialist has told us. Indeed, at times I've been worried I'm going to harm her; perhaps my awareness of that risk is a sign that I am in some sort of control.

It is remarkable how my caring role has evolved over the last twelve months: a year ago I had to contemplate looking after her (apparently for ever) with four daily visits from carers. At first I 2as frightened by the responsibility: my fifty plus years of experience did not encompass managing incontinence, or helping a frail person walk. I used the carer visits to learn how to do what had to be done (with help from the (private) physio); we reduced the number of care visits until doing away with them altogether some eight months after Viv came out of hospital. That was the way we wanted to do it - it was not suggested by the carers or social services or anyone we wanted our privacy, and perhaps as my confidence grew I became more expert, and more patient, than I realised.

I'm tempted to wonder why officialdom did not encourage me to learn the necessary skills, since there is such an apparent crisis in the care world: shouldn't the various authorities be encouraging people to learn how to support themselves, even with whatever disability they have developed, to free up finite resources for those who really need more help? Is it too easy for people whose care is funded by the local authority to just take the carers for granted and not try to consider ways they might be self sufficient?

There will always be people who do need a lot of support for a long time, but our experience is that those that can manage on their own don't receive any encouragement or incentive to do so. Perhaps doing away with that £23K savings limit for the first six months (or raising it for just that period) might be an incentive?

Is suspect that many carers might prefer to have a 'teaching' role in their customers' lives rather than just a 'service provision' one, too...?

Also, shouldn't management of the elderly/frail/disabled be on the national curriculum - so that everyone knows the basics, things like how to help someone stand from a chair, or change a pad while their lying on a bed? If everyone had a basic knowledge of these skills we (as a society) may be less tempted to shut our elderly and frail away in homes, or demand the state send round carers to wipe their bums.