David Craig, on December 17th, 2014Around 800,000 elderly people in Britain have some form of dementia and severe memory problems. As medical care and general health improve, this number will increase.
About 322,000 elderly are looked after in “care homes” and of these at least 80% (257,600) have memory difficulties.
There was the usual hand-wringing from the BBC today over the fact that 4 out of every 5 nurses hired by the NHS this year were foreign. One would hope that these nurses are actually qualified and haven’t just bought their qualifications as many doctors and nurses do in some countries. Also one would assume they have to speak reasonable English to get a job with the NHS.
However, such demands are not required for foreigners working in British care homes. Someone I know worked for a couple of years for a care agency looking after elderly people both in their own homes and in care homes. This person spoke rather limited English and her ‘training’ consisted of shadowing a more experienced care assistant for just 2 days. After that, she was on her own, sometimes dealing with very vulnerable older patients.
Many elderly people are probably getting good care in Britain’s care homes. But others will end up in a care home with some lazy ‘carer’ shouting at them in pidgin English:
“You a dirtee laydee” (slap)
“I no get monee nuff” (punch)
“Ha, ha see I do what want” (slap) “What you do ’bout it, laydee? No-one listen you, dirtee laydee” (punch)
“You smell bad, dirty laydee. Why you do poo-poo in bed?” (push) “I no clean you, you own fault, dirtee laydee” (walks out slamming door leaving someone’s mother lying in her own excrement)
Still, at least running a care home is a very lucrative business with charges of £30,000 a year not uncommon. Britain’s care homes have made an awful lot of enterprising businesspeople very rich indeed and able to afford things like hiring private jets, expensive sado-masochistic sex sessions with male prostitutes and £200,000 wedding ceremonies.
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Yet another example of the short-sightedness of Government. As increased numbers of people live to ever greater ages, but with physical and mental incapacity, ever more younger people will be needed to look after them. So what is the official policy? Bring in hoards of foreigners of dubious provenance and zilch ability to speak English, and abandon our old and infirm to their not-so-tender mercies. Of course, many of the immigrant carers are superb and, unlike our own young people, do not regard offering care to those in need as beneath their dignity. The fact, though, is that we should be raising out own youngsters to be more caring, less self-centred, more realistic with regard to their frequently limited academic abilities and consequently more ready to take up jobs such as practical care, for which the focus is primarily on manual skills. You don’t need a university education to be a caring carer! It was a tragedy when State Enrolled nurses were abolished and State Registered Nursing became a degree course, so that administering solely physical care came to be considered a denigrating way of earning a living.
Apart from the issue of questionable care for those currently needing it, bringing in so many immigrant carers is in fact perpetuating all the problems in the NHS, since many of these immigrants will remain in the UK, produce children of their own, all incidentally born “on the NHS” and requiring housing and education, and will eventually grow old and themselves need care in the UK.
Wise words, keen reader, unfortunately the new way is for gov to allow large corporates to exploit our system. The wealthy pay for themselves and the Gov pays for the rest out of tax.
The Gov portrays itself as caring whilst allowing our elderly to be exploited and impoverished.In the end Gov will just hand all our taxes/borrowings over to the corporates.
What was once a service is now a profit/exploitation centre.
First, corporates took over, energy and water, then it was prisons, then it was telecoms, then it was transport, then it was mail, the NHS is next and after that housing.
How do France, Germany and Japan deal with this? As they to have an increase in life expectancy and a birth rate below replacement level. Japan imports no migrants but France and Germany do. Are there lots of migrants working in their care homes? Who runs them? Germany hospitals are not run by the state its just that the state pays the medical bills. The have a much more efficent all the parasite managers and trusts that leech of our NHS.
The Duch seem to be using covert Euthanasia to cut their care home costs. Should we consider this.
Mr Brown, the problem with euthanasia is that it does not generate income. On the other hand, Seroquel and the like, make for quiescent inmates paid for at £1200+ per week.
A friend of mine worked in a care home for a short spell. The ‘foreigners.’ were
Phillipino girls, six to be precise. He said they worked hard, spoke very little English,
were paid crap wages, and lived in a converted garage. The cost of a place in the
home was around £595 per week. This was five years ago. Big profits with slave
labour. Is it any wonder that our own young people are reluctant to take on this kind
of work. In general, this has been the trend under this government, low wages,
greater profitability. Greater gap between the ‘haves’ and the ‘have nots.’