Sunday 10 November 2013

Carers.

long-time, no blog. I guess I thought I had nothing to write about when in fact I do. I have a few new posts to make! This is the first one.

One of the most important things in my life is my carers who assist me in everything, without whom I would be in a nursing home, which is not the ideal living situation for me. I am so happy I have fantastic carers and I am really grateful for the help they provide. Carers have had a lot of bad press lately and I think it is unfair as there are a lots of carers who provide excellent service to many people within the community giving them the ability to live in their own homes. And these hard-working people are undervalued, underappreciated and most definitely overworked and underpaid. The people who are providing care to our elderly and vulnerable people in our society should definitely be earning more than minimum wage for what is often a thankless job with long hours, heavy lifting and often dealing with unpleasant things. Lots of people complain about carers, yet would not do the job themselves! Bit hypocritical really.

I think it must be really difficult to be a live in carer/personnel assistant, which is what I rely on. It must be really difficult to go to a person who you have never met before to look after them and live in their house. How hard must it be pretty much be on duty 24 seven for a set amount of time, sometimes as long as a few weeks.
I really appreciate that there are people willing to do this. Quite often these people are from eastern Europe or from the backpacker community but I don't see how this matters as they are excellent carers who are extremely nice people and very hard-working. I have read on disability websites about people complaining about these care workers, moaning about them being foreign, and I myself do not understand how this matters. What difference does it make, where somebody is from, surely this is a bit racist! I have also heard people complaining about how they do not get any consistency with carers. Well what do you expect if you do not treat them in a respectful manner, and do not give them a moment to rest. They are people not robots! And just because they are counted as your personal assistant it does not give you the right to speak to them like they are your slave. I never have any problem with consistency of PAs, because I treat my pas decently and respectfully. I tend to get on really well with them because they are usually roundabout my age and we have to same kind of personality and we have fantastic talks and watch films together etc. I really appreciate the work they do.

I am extremely grateful to all of my carers as they helped me come so far, regaining my strength and confidence. Hopefully soon when my new wheelchair is here I will be able to go outside again. And I am looking forward to it. Obviously I will need my carers to help me with this and I know they will. I definitely appreciate all the girls and boys who have worked with me now and in the past. They have made a great difference in my life.

1 comment:

  1. Hi, Nice post thanks for sharing. Would you please consider adding an intro to my website on your next post? Please email me back. Thanks!

    Randy
    randydavis387 at gmail.com

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