Tag Archives: stroke

Family’s fury as 60 different carers visit in 30 months

March 18, 2014   Carers, Older care, Social care, stroke
An 84-year-old left disabled by a stroke had 60 different home carers in less than three years, her family have revealed.
18th March 2014  08.26

'DIABOLICAL': Stroke patient 84-year-old Audrey Arundel from Ossett. PIC: Jonathan Gawthorpe‘DIABOLICAL’: Stroke patient 84-year-old Audrey Arundel from Ossett. PIC: Jonathan Gawthorpe

Audrey Arundel’s daughter and son-in-law eventually demanded a new firm provide her care because of the string of different staff, which they 
branded “diabolical”, and other issues.

A search is now under way for another suitable company after the family had a disagreement with Wakefield Council over her care package.

Mrs Arundel’s son-in-law Malcolm Oates said: “From one company we have 60-odd different carers in two-and-a-half years. It’s diabolical.”

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Caring for the ill can cost you your freedom

February 10, 2014   Carers, mental health, stroke
The writer Mary Kenny has cared for her husband diligently following his stroke. But at what personal cost, she asks herself in a new book

 

Before the falls: Richard West reported on the Vietnam War, but his life with Mary was to change for ever after his stroke at the age of 66

By Mary Kenny

7:00AM GMT 10 Feb 2014

Those who are carers for their partners or families are often called saintly: and some are indeed saintly. But saintliness does not come naturally to everyone, and some of us have to strive not to feel resentment as a carer. We do our best: we want to look after those we love. But sometimes it’s a struggle.

It was 1996 and I had travelled to Bordeaux in France, with my sons, for a family wedding. My husband, Richard West, chose not to come along. That was OK by me: we were not one of those couples who did everything together and family weddings were not his gig. Richard’s gig, preferably, was being in Vietnam, or the Balkans, or anywhere, really: he’d been a foreign correspondent and wandering reporter all his life.

This was just before the era of the ubiquitous mobile phone, so I am not quite sure how the message reached me: but family networks were alerted and I received the instruction to ring London because Richard, then aged 66, was in hospital after a stroke. He was not in any danger but I needed to return to England as soon as possible. I remember thinking, “Our life is going to change: but I am not going to let this take over my life.”

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Patients ‘not ill enough’ for care funding

January 20, 2014   Carers, hospital, Scotland, stroke

By Eleanor Bradford BBC Scotland Health Correspondent

  The NHS should pay for those who have a complex medical condition and need nursing care

BBC Scotland has discovered further evidence that Scottish people are being wrongly charged care home costs.

The BBC has now learned of three people who are minimally conscious or in a vegetative state who have been told they are not “ill enough” to get their care costs paid by the NHS.

The three individuals all suffered serious strokes.

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