Care Homes

The issue of care homes has come into focus again as an undercover reporter has shot film in one of the largest care homes. The gist of the report is the poor treatment handed out to some of the oldies as they require dressing or changing when the old person makes a mess of themselves because of being incontinent.
The first thing to say is that sadly the warehousing of old people will I think lead to there being the occasional frustration and mistreatment of some of these people. We are far from our best when we get old, especially if we suffer from dementia and the normal functionality we would expect of our selves, in terms of body functions means that caring for these shadowy old people, who no longer represent what they were, must be extremely difficult.
We willingly accept the job, when caring for our own children, of changing nappies. Sometimes the nappy smells but generally, because of a child's diet the smell is well within our comfort zone and in any case we love the little mite and would do anything for them.
Scroll on 70/80 years and the same help is required, unfortunately not by a loving parent but by a hired hand who is paid the very minimum the employer can get away with. The old person sometimes delusional, sometimes quarrelsome sometimes incontinent, is not a lovely bouncing baby but a skeletal worn out body and a mind that can not see reason. Its no wonder that the undervalued care home nurse becomes oblivious to the human being residing in that bag of bones. Their day is a conveyor belt of unpleasant duties and its no use saying they shouldn't have gone into nursing. They are often 'auxiliaries' drawn from countries like the Philippines on zero hour contracts for whom the job is just that, a job.
Our undervaluing should not be laid at the door of the nurse but at the edifice that has become the Care Industry with its eye on the bottom line. And even more, we should blame ourselves for allowing the Government to farm out to private enterprise this important job. We, the public should be clamouring to pay an extra tax, ring fenced, so that all old people (of whom you will join their ranks sooner than later) can be cared for properly. Paid for out of the 'public purse' to provide what ever is needed when that need arises.
And just in case you youngsters think I am mad, that is how it used to be before the public's overall responsibility was weaned away my Margaret Thatcher.