I have been compelled to write to in response to a piece in the daily mail yesterday regarding the Alzheimer’s patients being locked up and tied up.
Reading the piece in the paper ignited the flame deep in the pit of my gut, that reminded me of the day I found my father sedated in the care home close to where I live. It was one ordeal, in the first instance, to ensure that he did not return to the family home, he had become a vulnerable adult in his own home.
That’s another story. However , placing him in a care home to ensure he was safe and remained alive, I did not expect to find him in a sedated state when I visited him. Nor do I believe, in not educating people ( the families there of ) that this was something I may expect as his daughter, or come up against and experience.
The care homes have every opportunity to educate families, preparing the families about the regressing body of the person they love, as it is part of being able to cope. Individuals working in care homes really need more education and training, that is clearly obvious as more and more devastating stories surface from the depths of a volcano that has started to bubble. In care homes there are policies on a policy. The box ticking exercise is not sufficient any more, and I don’t know that it ever was. When did somebody stop doing the very job they were paid to do? What sort of individual looks after another by locking them in a room for 10 hours, tying them to a chair. Its outrageous, constitutes abuse and it’s completely unacceptable.
These individuals running care homes, placing staff in them to run them without the adequate training, quite frankly should be ashamed of themselves. The people who have the power to make this stop and realign the set up, checking and monitoring, and making people accountable for their actions is something that is long over due! Being a good carer takes heart and compassion.
The human element, of one person to another is the part of a carer that must be developed. It is unacceptable just to be a carer because it’s a job. This is all part of a filtration element, the thread that’s broken in the cotton reel that needs to be addressed in these care homes. I have witnessed compassion in abundance in individuals which have developed the more human part of themselves and they too look after Alzheimer’s patients. It is a fire that burns deep within them that no qualification can give you.
Why ? Because they have heart.