Quote:
Originally Posted by Cherie
There are ways around it like taking annual leave or or helping towards paying for extra carer hours to help them get back on their feet if they needed it after a stay in hospital. if someone has to put their parent on a commode on a regular basis I suspect the best place for them is a care home. Maybe the government needs to look at some kind of leave similar to paternity leave so that people can look after a relative to get then over a stay in hospital, I am not absolving the government of anything, but I do think we are developing into a society that want them to do everything for us and that isn't healthy pardon the pun
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Many people don't have surplus funds and sadly, in this modern age, families often live some distance apart. Finding a good provider takes time and is often difficult depending on where the person lives. People are often left in a situation where they take what they can, even if its overly expensive and not ideal.
What we need is government funded respite care facilities. This would speed up hospital beds whilst still giving much needed enabling care to those who need it. What happens atm is, an elderly person is hospitalized after, say a pelvic injury. Social services within the local council are contacted and agree to take her on, often on the day she is discharged home and even though that person is on red alert and will see someone fairly quickly, she is still going to arrive home, often to an empty house, with no immediate equipment or facility to help her. If she has a family that has arrived to help... great. If she doesn't, she must feel very frightened and alone.
The tragic thing is, many of these people have worked hard all their lives. They've paid their taxes and NI and they've saved enough money for a rainy day and hope to leave something for their family but are suddenly faced with not having enough or losing it all. Domiciliary care has become so expensive, even though the actual carers get a pittance, that the elderly people who need that care, often choose to manage without it and that in itself is a huge problem.
We are all hopefully going to grow old. None of us know if we will need home care in the future but wouldn't it be awful if we reached a stage where that care comes subject to affordability?