You lie in your own mess. You are cold. You are hungry and confused. You can’t remember whether you have taken your pills. You feel ashamed. You feel angry. It is still five hours before someone will knock on the door, let herself in, and wash you. You hope for a few minutes’ talk but you know that it won’t happen. She only has a quarter of an hour for your appointment …
Author Archives: Maureen
I’m to live as a prisoner in my own home
Carers will visit throughout the day to dress, wash and feed me and put me to bed at night. I am expected to use a commode which will stay in my living room, the only room I am now allowed to occupy.
Published on Monday 21 November 2011 09:28
I celebrated my 93rd last week, in respite care.
I ended up here after a short stay in hospital a few months ago. I’m not sure what happened. I told them I was getting old, I didn’t feel well and my legs wouldn’t support my weight.
They talk a lot about me, I have been to a lot of meetings recently. I can’t remember what they are about. My family have been there and they explain what is going on, but I don’t understand it all. I don’t listen to it all.
Who will speak for the old and disabled, trapped in their homes?
We hear a lot about how cuts affect women and the young – but the crisis in social care is perhaps the greatest of them all
The most vocally excluded of all in our society are the old and poor.
Vulnerable families and carers will be pushed past breaking point
The most vulnerable are already being hammered by benefit cuts
- Friday 18 November 2011
Vulnerable families will be pushed past breaking point if Chancellor George Osborne holds down the annual uprating of benefits, a charity warned today.
Unconfirmed reports in The Times today claimed that Mr Osborne is planning to slice £1 billion off the welfare bill by breaking a long-standing procedure under which benefits are upgraded each year in line with September’s inflation rate.
