Thursday 11 June 2015

I lost count of the times I cried

Three years ago I received a series of phone calls in the night. My 85-year-old aunt, who suffered from advanced dementia, had fallen over in her bedroom. Her carer, Tsitsi, had heard the crash, wrapped her in blankets and called an ambulance. The paramedics took four hours to arrive, so Tsitsi sat with her and called me hourly with updates on her condition.

I knew my aunt was in safe hands. Listening to their interactions throughout the night, I heard a carer of superhuman patience responding with respect and compassion to the confused, tired and frequently furious questions of a woman who wasn’t sure where she was and who the hell this person was sitting on the floor beside her.

Tsitsi’s job was tough, but at least she was trained and paid for what she did. Many carers are neither of these things. What’s more, the majority of the UK’s 6.5 million unpaid carers are silent, mainly because they’re too busy looking after their ill or disabled mothers, fathers, husbands, wives, sons and daughters to do anything else, least of all complain.

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