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we would expect of our selves, in terms of body functions means that caring for these shadowy old people, who no longer represent what they were, must be extremely difficult.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.         

Counting our blessings

I have just watched a party political broadcast on behalf of the Scottish Nationalist Party regarding the up coming vote on whether to become independent from the UK. It was an interesting piece claiming various advantages if they freed themselves of Whitehall. The counter claims come from spokes people for the government and the English Establishment who for various reasons wish to keep the United Kingdom, united. The debate is highly civilised and the use of the ballot box and not the gun is without question much more desirable than the rioting on the streets of cities in the Ukraine.
There are numerous struggles going on all over the world, the amateur street video feeds a picture of conflict on all continents, with neighbour violently attacking neighbour and the police seeming ineffectual unless they decide to turn their guns on the crowd. It all seems a world away from the Scottish debate and brings one again to acknowledge that we have many blessings to be thankful for living here on these islands. One often becomes irritated with political decisions, decisions that seem unfair or unjust but we have the ace in our hands, we can reverse the decision at the next election if sufficient people think the same way and, turn out to vote.
People argue that your vote is a useless thing since the political parties proffer a manifesto to get our vote but the manifesto is not binding and, in part is dropped when the reigns of power are handed over.
This is true and I for one would make the manifesto promise binding but what ever happens we don't see the mayhem or the bloodshed that seems to accompany political struggles elsewhere and for that, we count our blessings !!!    

Cape Town

I have just been watching a World Triathlon race held in Cape Town. I had just got up and switched on the TV to be regaled by the light, warmth and beauty of Cape Town as a backdrop to an interesting race. A swim in the ocean, a bike ride up and down the hills on the Peninsular finished by a race through the streets of Sea Point. The mountain was on best behaviour with no South Easter blowing, looking majestic a clear defined profile sitting in judgement over the city at its feet. There were few spectators which contrasts with many of the other host cities for this world event where usually the streets are lined with spectators cheering the contestants on. I wonder why people didn't turn out to watch the race ?
I was certainly made to feel homesick (having spent 25 years in SA I think I can make some sort of claim for 'home') as I remembered the happy days when I first arrived in Cape Town on Christmas Eve, back in 1961.  My eyes were agog with this sunny country, a land of plenty, homes which looked like mansions and a people who were so warm and friendly. Of course it was a schizophrenic society trying to ignore the vast majority who were swept away out of sight after 6am into the townships, we were all to blame, going along with the Afrikaners attempt to ignore the political climate which arose after the war regarding the egalitarian nature of nations across the world.
My memories, as a 22 year old, were of the drop down gorgeous girls who lay on the beach amongst the boulders at Clifton Beach.The sumptuous steaks at Walters Grill in Sea Point, the welcoming warmth of my Aunt and Uncles home in Vrederhoek, their friends who were so unlike the closed relationships we have in the UK, they exuded  openness  and trust.
I was only in the town for 12 months before pushing off again this time to Australia but I would never again experience the strength of the bonds that were forged in those far off days in Cape Town.           

City Life

The city can be a formidable place for a whole list of reasons. the pace the frenetic life style the crush of humanity the danger of being injured in traffic or by walking into the wrong pub. The most damaging aspect of living in a big city is the loss of identity the loss of connection to others around you the confusion as to your own identity in the myriad identities around you and in your absorption to be, one of them.
From waking to going to sleep we are constantly changing our identity as we role play the circumstance we find ourselves in. From a husband/father having breakfast with the family to the commuter on the train or bus to the face we put on when we enter the office to the one we display after work in a pub.  Chameleon like, we change, and in part that change is due to the influence of images which are posted in our everyday life, on the TV or the advertising hoarding. Images of success and what it takes not only to be successful but also accepted by a particular group, the group you wish to belong to at that particular moment.
Where is the real self in all this competition. Dare we display our real feelings or shall we constrain ourselves to the politically correct view. Will being an outsider damage our chances of acceptance within management and socially. There are so many pressures in the city to conform and yet at other times, to be a none conformist, a trend setter, an eye catcher. Pity the dull grey man sitting in the corner but be aware of what you say in a crowd might get back to hurt you.
And so we move throughout our day, carefully stepping on the stepping stones, afraid a false step will not only give us a ducking but that we may never make it to the shore !!     

God Bless America,but not all of it.

There is a move enunciated by John Kerry to diminish the reporting of RT (the Russian external news service) because of its questioning the American point of view. In the White House Press Briefing the reporter from RT gets short shift from the American Press Secretary addressing the press by refusing to answer RT's questions.
Of course there is no equivalent of a free press in Russia and Putin has blood on his hands in the way he deals with any opposition.
But two wrongs don't make a right and the way the American Administration, seeped in its own quagmire of deceit and obfuscation. The leader of a supposed free West, built on openness and justice. A country that on the one hand prides its self on the openness of its Court's and a Constitution that most countries in the world would die for and yet has a very dark side in the CIA and other government special agencies, not to mention the abomination of Guantanamo Bay.
We, the public have, for the first time the opportunity to pick and choose our news source and form our own opinions. The internet and the smart phone give us instant access to the good and the bad things that are happening each minute around the globe. Its a phenomenon that world leaders hate, their story questioned by their electorate and we see the result. The White House instructing the American people to ignore the reporting of a foreign news service because it conflicts with the message the American Administration wishes to proclaim as the truth.
I know they have become more evangelical in their self belief but this borders on religiosity.
From my early years I was taught to sample from as many sources as you could before making up your mind about anything and then be prepared to change your mind as new information arises.
God bless America but save us from their pompous politicians and the self justification that President Bush's war on terror has induced on a good country.              

An old age,age old problem

I'm listening to a radio program regarding the care of elderly people when they can't care for themselves.   Its  chilling to listen to the pathos of an increasing dilemma in 2014.
People are living longer, by quite a number of years which of course means that old people are becoming much more frail than in generations when, conveniently we died in our late sixties.
A report out this week describes the situation that by 2017 the people needing care outstrip the family members who could offer, in all except the final stages, care for their parents. The trend, to house the old in 'care homes' has become, apart from anything else, horrendously expensive, £900 per week.  It also questions our guilt, or otherwise, for not keeping the 'oldies' under our care. The argument runs, the parent looked after the children throughout their childhood when they were in need, why not look after the parent in their time of need ?
The calls to the program were a mixture. Some admitting they couldn't cope, or didn't feel they should have to cope and calls, largely from the Muslim society who said it was their 'responsibility' to care for their parents and that was the end of the matter !      
One of the disadvantages of modern living in the fast lane  is that as we max our credit we have to keep running to stand still. The thought of giving up our time to unpaid work is impossible to consider, our time is defined by our debt and we simply have to hope others will take up this care responsibility. Even the word, responsibility has little meaning for many, their lives have been absorbed in 'self' to such an extent that to look outside that particular box is unthinkable.
I myself have enormous guilt towards the way I treated my own Mother. After my Dad died she was shattered. I was there in the early stages to help, even though my family were in South Africa. I brought her over to us to live with us in Jo'burg and  tried to negotiate a situation where she would stay with us. With no blame attached it didn't work out and I was forced to see her return to her home in Bradford. Why I didn't rent a flat for her in Joburg and provide the proper support, still racks me to this day but this is only one man's story of the difficulty in resolving these sort of family orientated, age old, care related problems.                

Our own brand of thought control

With the latest news of the abduction of the young girls who have been captured and held hostage by Boko Haram in Nigeria, the latest in a long list of violent acts by groups linked to the Muslim faithful we obviously have to reflect on the religion and those who follow it.
We who live outside the Muslim faith, (as I am sure are the majority of Muslims), are incredulous at the way the faith can be interpreted in such a way that young men and women can be worked up to commit murder in the name of a Holy War. To give their own lives in the belief that they will gain Paradise by killing the Infidel.
The definition of an infidel includes the Shi'as interpretation of the Sunni and visa versa, both Muslim, each with a different historical relationship to Mohammed and each hated because of that difference.
Religion has always baffled the none religious person, how the surety of belief can turn the concept of "loving mankind", on its head by fanatics.
Of course one gets fanatics in every turn of life, people who are consumed by their cause, political, environmental who risk everything to promote their concept of the ideal. Most conflicts in history have been disfigured by people who turn on another group because they have been brain washed into seeing what is not there.
After the War the Ukrainians massacred the Poles in Volhynia. People who had been neighbours for generations turned on each other in an attempt to exterminate the weaker group, in this case the Poles. No one was spared, men women and children, people known on first name terms, going to school together were killed in an orgy of revenge.
The term revenge is indeed a terrible one. We see it in the divorce court we see it in the bomb planted outside a particular congregation, aimed to exact revenge for a historical slight that is only alight because someone kept it so. These quasi personal vendettas are usually limited to the tribal situation where the enmity is relatively limited and however horrible, is played out in a relatively constrained area.
The Muslim extremist seems to exist on an altogether broader canvas, world wide in fact. Its a growing problem. In modern times it was limited to largely Al Qaed in Afghanistan but like the mythological Hydra it seems to be growing heads everywhere. Is this a genuine desire to expand  the faith. There have been many historical surges in history by religions to capture the high ground and with our instantaneous news, we are made more aware of their activities. 
We are also governed in our response by the outward manifestation of the brotherhood (manifest in any religion) but particularly in our plural society, by a dress code which has the effect of alienating the local population. If you accentuate the difference rather than try to assimilate people, as we have done progressively in terms of race, gender and sexual difference its difficult to accept that another group who are not indigenous to our way of life should seek to impose their own brand of exclusivity.
The case of the schools in Birmingham where the curricula has been adjusted to suit the faith and adopt the principles of Sharia Law is a bridge too far and we have to ask whether as a nation we should insist on our own brand of thought control ?                     

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