good neighbours right or wrong

I think the situation you describe is very unusual lafergar. Where is your evidence for this?

Do not think, if you need carers, that you will get a couple of pleasant and dedicated local women to get you through a difficult recovery

No what you might get, is a pleasant looking ( white) woman who has a nice little unregulated business going with her daughter. They will pass people amongst themselves and proably claim benefits .

My DS organised carers for me from a private company after I had to have two operations in hospital.
I suppose about a dozen different people came at different times, men and women, many from Africa and south
Asia. They were respectful and did their best. It was very expensive although the carers themselves were poorly paid.
Do not think, if you need carers, that you will get a couple of pleasant and dedicated local women to get you through a difficult recovery.

JaneJudge I have sent you a PM x

I suppose if she had good neighbours they could do it. I imagine she would have died in infancy if it had been 200 years ago as Id have had to have gone to work and she couldn’t breastfeed, she could hardly take a bottle. I suppose this is what poor people faced

Aveline

JaneJudge I didn't attack you. You attacked me and told me I needed to know more. That's one thing I absolutely don't need to know more about!

I have not attacked you. Read the thread, you told me I needed to visit care homes - something I’ve been doing loads of for the past year, trying to find somewhere suitable for a young woman with SLD and complex needs. I’m irritated with your assumption that what I’d replied to doesn’t happen
My daughter is late 20s so not a child but she’s my child and she is precious to me. I honestly don’t know what to bloody do

I agree sodapop. Carers need to be efficient, well trained, well paid, know their job and hopefully be kind and friendly. If they love their job so much the better. But it is a job and I expect someimes not a very pleasant job.
But to rely on carers loving their job and therefore being happy to remain poorly paid is extraordinary. I don't think their senior managers and the care home owners would feel the same. I think their eyes are on the bottom line.
It will be interesting to see what repercussions there are following the government's announcements this week of a clampdown on visas offered to immigrsnt care workers.

Why is there an assumption that carers should do their job for the love of it and not want decent remuneration. I'm sure this doesn't apply in other walks of life,

JaneJudge I didn't attack you. You attacked me and told me I needed to know more. That's one thing I absolutely don't need to know more about!

JaneJudge

Thank you Monica I hardly post on Gransnet now because of people being so dismissive. During the pandemic my dd was placed in a low cost alternative and the affects it has had to her MH is destroying her. I cannot meet her needs at home so unless the LA agree to the expensive options open now which they won’t agree to,she will end up in a tier 4 provision - which apparently don’t exist anymore (they are institutions)

Aveline you owe me an apology. This thread isn’t about what you’ve posted on it. The care placement my dd is in uses people on visas, which is all you’d posted before you attacked me.

There are far too many in your, and your daughter's position. Most people have little or no idea what it can be like. Heartbreaking.

In the 1930s my grandfather had two fingers amputated on the kitchen table by his GP following an industrial accident. They were not good old days. The GP refused payment.

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.

Another one who thinks that sounds horrific to do anything like that. One would have to be compassionate indeed for that sort of thing. These layers-out people performed a very valuable service and it's a shame no-one does that any longer - or the 3 days lying in the sitting room to "pay respects" - though I couldnt do anything like that personally.

Though I can certainly see the "old ways" would help protect people (ie the recently-deceased in this case). There would be people who would be in a position to know if the person 101% had died - and that's something we don't have these days - and thus those perceived as having just died would be at risk of being declared "brain dead - and so we can grab donor organs from them" and I've read so many cases by now of the "dead" person coming to after all as they're being carved open to grab a donor organ from them and some of them are horrific and the medics can be overly hasty in pronouncing someone to be dead - in order that they can grab the organ and stop the care.

Both my parents were delivered by the woman in the neighbourhood who was a sort of unofficial "midwife".My gran had 11 children & the youngest was the only one she had to have medical assistance with, she was told on no account to risk another pregnancy.
Also I remember my mum, who had a very old-fashioned upbringing, changing dressings for the very elderly gentleman who lived up the road. He had somehow caught himself whilst using the toilet.Nasty & not the sort of thing I would consider doing for my neighbour! And this was in the 80's. He did have district nurse visits for the main dressing changes.
We also had cousins stay with us for about a month while their mum cared for a sick sibling.
I'm not agreeing with the OP about carers, we have had good experiences, but communities were definitely more self-reliant & that's not entirely a bad thing.

Thank you Monica I hardly post on Gransnet now because of people being so dismissive. During the pandemic my dd was placed in a low cost alternative and the affects it has had to her MH is destroying her. I cannot meet her needs at home so unless the LA agree to the expensive options open now which they won’t agree to,she will end up in a tier 4 provision - which apparently don’t exist anymore (they are institutions)

Aveline you owe me an apology. This thread isn’t about what you’ve posted on it. The care placement my dd is in uses people on visas, which is all you’d posted before you attacked me.

JaneJudge

This is actually why funding is a problem. People think 'social care' means older people in a temporary situation nearing the end of life. It completely ignores the millions of people who need long term care because of a long term disability or illness.

I think people have quite unrealistic ideas about how expensive care homes are to run.

To begin with there is the cost of the bulding, possibly with a mortgage, council tax, and the extras because care homes are classified as businesses, then there is the maintenance of the buildings, everything has to work all the time, heating, plumbing, kitchens - then the fuel bills, heating levels have to be high 21 degrees at least, 24/7, then there is the need to have safety checks and standards, maintaining fire and smoke alarms, fire exits etc etc.

That is before you consider the day to day care of people, food, cooks, care staff, nursing staff, managers, decorating, furnishing, the right chairs and beds, activity organisers, gardeners.

When visiting an elderly relative once there was a fire practice and all staff had to collect in the main entrance. DH and I reckoned there was one staff member presne tfor every resident - and that was just those at work that morning. Night and weekend staff were not there.

Think how much it costs to run your own home, where you are all the staff involved and you do not get paid, then work out how much it would cost you to, as well as basic payments - fuel, council tax, then employ, and fully pay, carers to come into care for you a cleaner once a week, pay for meals to be delivered, someone to do the laundry, a gardener, were appropriate. I doub you could do it for a weekly rate of a good care home and it might well cost a lot more.

It certainly needs funding now winterwhite.
Personally I'd pay more tax for better services.

Exactly, NotSpaghetti re social care never having been part of the NHS. What has happened since is that most women have jobs outside the home so have no spare time for caring responsibilities, and that the NHS has narrowed its remit. ‘Community care’, started in the late 80s wasn’t properly funded in the first place and has since had a load of extra services siphoned off to it from the NHS without equivalent funding.

JaneJudge I'm talking about are homes for elderly as this is what this thread is about.
Long term care for disabled children and adults is something else altogether and something I know a great deal about. 😑

BlueBelle

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

My father's sister was
The lady who delivered babies
so, yes, BlueBelle it was common practice. As were operations on the kitchen table. My maternal uncle had his appendix removed by the GP in these circumstances.

another article

another

they aren't cheap options either. They are run by private entities making profit out of the 'assets' ie patients

It is frightening how invisible this is if the wider public do not know what is happening

This is actually why funding is a problem. People think 'social care' means older people in a temporary situation nearing the end of life. It completely ignores the millions of people who need long term care because of a long term disability or illness.

Maybe do a bit of research Aveline. here is a brief overview by mencap

I wasn't talking about care homes (my daughter lives in one by the way

Care homes are not 'institutions'! Nobody is 'incarcerated'. Go and visit some.

the social care system needs to evolve not devolve
this thread has reminded me of a book called Grace says it loud , about someone whose own sister was placed in an institution
they have never been a good idea and the fact they still exist and incarcerate such vulnerable people is a modern day travesty
care from neighbours? no thanks! people need dignity. It is one of the most important things

I had a call from an occupational therapist the other week. I am disabled . I did tell her I had an occupational therapist come to see me last year and after seeing all my adaptions I had paid to my bungalow gave me 2 things I didn't realise I needed. She asked me to lie on the bed to see how I got up. Which was always with a struggle so she gave me and fitted a bed bar. It wasn't until I had it I realised I struggled to get in . I would be lost without it. Plus she gave me a compression cushion. I have water retention in my legs but can't have water tablets as I have loe sodium levels. It's great it keeps my legs level and elevated .

They have no record of the occupational therapists visit so asked if how often I showered explained only once a week as I find it exhausting getting dry and since having jaundice in 2017 have to use cream on any but that gets wet. She said someone could come in everyday to shower me . I said no I have things called flannels and keep clean. I have a shower chair bolted to my wall that folds up with folding arm rests and from legs cost £300 but I am safe . Plus had large handles on inside and outside of my shower rectangle. She asked me about going to the loo so told her had ease toilet looks like a normal loo just taller and have a handrail on the wall at an angle . Plus put my feet on a toddler step after lot of UTIs and kidney beans nurse told me to always make sure my knees and hips are inline that way you empty your bladder and bowel completely.
Next she offered me a button to go round my neck . I always have my phone on me . So again a no . I know she was being kind and trying to help me but being disabled doesn't mean incapable. But thanks to my husband who adapted our home for me I knew what I needed in my bungalow and garden to make it safe.

Unfortunately people who do need help slip through the cracks and don't get it. Plus it really is a postcode lottery. I know how much the healthcare I get here is excellent only took me a move of over 100+ miles to get the help medically I needed for years and found out what my disability is called and found out I was also born with a hole in the side of my heart.

If you need help either get in touch with occupational therapy or / and falls unit attached to your council or get in touch with a charity either Age UK or if you know your condition or that of a relative the charity that is for it .