Elder Abuse: Give Carers The Help They Need (UK)

Give carers the help they need to care properly

By Paidrig O'morain
November 15 2008

Scandals such as Leas Cross have accustomed us to the idea that old people are more likely to be abused in nursing homes than in their own homes, but we're wrong.
Figures from the HSE show that fewer than three per cent of claims of elder abuse are made against nursing home staff and other health workers.

The vast majority of complaints are against close relatives -- half against sons and daughters and almost one in five against spouses.

a fourth category of carer who becomes abusive towards an older relative. This is the carer who feels trapped and who sees no way out of the relentless grind of caring. It may be that nobody else in the family or extended family provides any help with caring. Perhaps the carer is also trying to cope with rearing young children. Perhaps the person being cared for is difficult, demanding, ungrateful.

Understanding

A similar service could make an enormous difference to stressed-out carers of the elderly and to those for whom they are caring.

This type of help can transform, for the better, situations of huge potential conflict.
A home-help service, with sufficient funding to give carers a break, could also transform potentially dangerous situations -- though since a properly funded home-help service was not provided during the boom, it is hardly likely to be provided now, in these worrying times.

Some perpetrators of elder abuse -- the greedy, the cruel and the callous -- can only be dealt with by the law. But others will behave differently if given help and understanding.
Let's give it to them and improve their lives and those of the old people they care for.

Abridged
SOURCE: The Herald.ie - Dublin,Ireland
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