by
Scally » Sun Jun 29, 2008 9:04 pm
SEE:
http://sturly.com/jb8
Response by Laurie Hilsgen, Co-Founder, Carers NZ, to the keynote address by Jill Pitkeathly, former CEO of Carers UK]At the time in NZ there were moves to train home care workers and family carers to perform a range of invasive procedures that would normally be done by nurses. With a training budget of $30, so one draft contract proposed, a nurse could teach a paid worker or unpaid family carer to perform a health task that had significant legal and health risks for all parties.
"Where do we draw the line with these issues," I asked Jill. At that time I was myself performing health tasks for my partner that in hindsight were not appropriate for him or for me. I was grappling with the pressure of becoming a quasi-nurse, to keep my partner at home rather than enter residential care, in a rural area, at a time when people with high needs might receive a community nurse visit once a week. No one had asked whether I wanted to perform these procedures, or whether it was appropriate for me to perform them without training ... or whether I should receive training to perform them, thus finally crossing the line from lover and partner to nurse and carer. My real question to Jill, which she heard and I was not aware I had asked, was whether my relationship with my partner would be forever changed once this line had been crossed. A decade on, I can say that this metamorphosis did happen ... that it was irrevocable ... and that it is a danger I warn of to other carers and to professionals and family members with disabilities.
Jill's barked response still resonates with me, more than a decade later -- "Carers must never be taught to be nurses. Carers are not nurses. They are parents, spouses, siblings, partners, lovers, neighbours, friends. Once you start training carers to perform nursing tasks, you undermine the profession of nursing, and you are on a slippery slope whereby it becomes okay for family members to perform health tasks that should be undertaken only by professionals."[/quote]
So maybe that partly answers the question - I dont think carers should be employees of the cared for person, but I do think that families pool money anyway.
Looking forwards to a future scenario where pensioners receive carers allowance, I am worried that we may end up with a very complicated situation where increasingly, elderly couples both with major disabilities like my own parents - now in their late 80's and still living independently - are both eligible for carers allowance for looking after each other, whilst an older person living alone without a carer would not have that extra income stream.
