good neighbours right or wrong

My neighbour has been a carer for years; she recently retired, and said work had become impossible. She was not paid for her journey time travelling between the people she cared for, and was often asked to drive out of her way - in her own time - to pick up other carers who didn't have transport on that day. Such a valuable job, and yet so underpaid and unappreciated.

HowVeryDareYou2

My grandma was the local person who used to "lay people out". She used to wash and dress the body, comb their hair, etc., and put pennies on the eyelids. She used to have the deceased in her front room. I was too young to remember, thankfully, but my brother (12 years older) remembers.

Gawd, that sounds horrific!

My grandma was the local person who used to "lay people out". She used to wash and dress the body, comb their hair, etc., and put pennies on the eyelids. She used to have the deceased in her front room. I was too young to remember, thankfully, but my brother (12 years older) remembers.

I remember when my uncle died suddenly at home in the sixties, one of the neighbours had ‘laid him out’ in the bedroom while they waited for his body to be taken for post mortem. She had put a tea towel around his head to hold his jaw closed and two pennies on his eyes. I was horrified. Auntie had asked her to do it, saying that this lady used to be the ‘handy wife’, and apparently attended to births and deaths before ( and sometimes even after for some of the older neighbours) the NHS.

There are many people born in the UK who are not interested in caring as a job. Aceline.
From what I read and see it's poorly paid, poorly resourced and the carers seem not to be paid for the time spent between "clients" so aremout of pocket.
In a better world, carers would receive good training and it would be seen as a career with decent pay. I think part of a nurse or doctor training should be spent caring in the community for 6 months. If only.
My neighbours work and could hardly care for me if required. But I enjoyed reading about the auntieeho did everything for everyone. She would have made an excellent matron.

Care companies can offer visas so can attract people who just want to come to UK. They aren't necessarily interested in caring as a job.

The number of deaths in childbirth and infant mortality dropped dramatically once women were cared for by qualified staff.

One of my aunts, a clever intelligent women wa taken out of school at 14 in order to stay at home and help her mother and her growing (11 children in total) family. Another was told she was to stay sngle and stay at home to look after her parents in old age. She had no sight in one eye, and was told that because of that no one would want to marry her.

Many old people lived without this wonderful support group and died of cold and hunger and malnutrition because they could not look after themselves and their dishevelled state when they left the house led to them being laughed at and cat called and called witches and crones.

All this would also be happening in communities where some groups did look after each other.

I suppose social care wasn't part of the NHS originally - so maybe that's why it's never been properly funded.

Agree that the OP seems to be describing life of a century ago or more.
Blame Mrs Thatcher who thought that social care was best delivered by for-profit agencies, and successive governments who have prioritised everything over social care.

My grandma was one of these women you describe. She told me a story about laying someone out and when she removed his shoe his toe fell off! She also kept her shroud in a drawer and had no qualms about telling me what it was for.
She was the unofficial village midwife, nurse etc as you say.
By the time the NHS came along she had been re-housed out of the village and was probably very glad people were being treated by professionals, especially the poor ones she helped because they couldn't afford anything else.
She was a real role model and a compassionate human being but life improved for everyone with the NHS and we need to think carefully about what would happen to people if we lost it...

There is nothing wrong with people doing a job for the money, as long a it is done properly, and carers certainly do not receive much of a salary.
In the 'good old days' most of the family caring was done by wives and unmarried daughters, for years and years, unpaid and frequently un-thanked. I knew -two.- three women who spent most of their married lives with both sets of in-laws living with them.

My aunt was born in the 1890s and was a woman of the type you describe. She would help at 'laying outs' and at births and 'lying ins'. When a woman went into hospital my aunt and a group of women like her would cook, wash, clean and keep house for her husband and children and then look after the woman when she returned home. She took in evacuees during the war and was known as Auntie by most people in our town.

She never had children of her own and her husband died just after the second world war. When he died she moved in with her brother and kept house for him. She always worked part time in pubs and shops and despite living a life of very hard work and not much money she seemed utterly content and was much loved. She made Christmas and special occasions fun and never seemed to get old - always young and joyful in her outlook. She grew her own veg and did her own decorating (going up and down a ladder!) until she was in her 80s.

I often wonder what she'd make of the modern world and indeed, what today's young people would make of her.

Carers like every other group of workers are of mixed ability and motivation. Sadly few if any qualifications or background experience needed, wages low.

No thanks I don’t think the ‘good old days’ were good old days
Do you really suggest a neighbour would deliver babies and bed bath old people ???
I m 80 and it never happened in my neck of the woods best we got was the neighbour getting in your washing in if it started raining while you were out or taking in a parcel for you certainly never lived where the sort of things you’re describing happened creaking

Sixty years ago, my widowed grandmother lived in a rather ugly concrete, warden-assisted tiny council flat with a communal lounge, in S London. I never did understand why a purpose-built pensioner facility would have steep concrete steps to the only entrance. They then moved her to a lovely new complex with gardens, and she had doors out into those gardens.

My sisters and I were all born in hospital in 1950s. My perception of a local unqualified midwife pre-dates NHS. My own children were both delivered by (qualified) midwives in 1980s. I never saw a doctor with either until just before discharge. Early 1980s, we stayed in maternity unit for ten days like my mum had with us, late 1980s, we were out the next day

Would you want neighbours bathing you?
I think I would not.

I could tell you about the conditions I saw in long term hospitals for those with learning disabilities, they were horrendous.