A few weeks back our esteemed editor referred to this column as being for 'caregivers'. He was entirely right to draw this distinction, and it's perhaps one I should have mentioned myself prior to now. So here I am, mentioning. The point is that it serves as a distinction between people who look after the disabled of body and mind professionally, and those who care for friends and family members because they need looking after, in exchange for no money and often with no training. I'm not a major fan of the phrase myself so I tend to avoid using it, but I can't deny that it's a distinction that needs making, or claim to have a better alternative. Instead, then, I shall focus on musing on what the differences are.

Let's start with the carers. The pros. The hard-nosed, no-nonsense grizzled veterans of the – oh alright, they're not like that at all. Mostly. The first important thing to note is that just because they are paid, it doesn't mean they don't care, so to speak. Caring, to the best of my knowledge, and speaking purely in the UK at the time of writing, pays reasonably well. But it's not a fun job. I had a friend who was a carer, and found the whole business distressing at times. This was precisely because he did care, and was saddened to see the condition some of his clients were in, and the situations they were reduced to. My wife worked in two care homes during her career. One was a nice posh expensive place where the residents were well looked after and happy. The other was a place where they were all basically given enough sleeping tablets to see them through until bed time. In both places she worked, at times, the literal graveyard shift, to keep an eye on the residents overnight, and sometimes to find them alive no more.

So the second issue with professionals emerges. In their world, whether they like it or not, caring is a business. Someone has to pay for your time and when the money runs out it usually means you have to be elsewhere looking after someone else. I don't want to get unduly political but this is the grimmest spectre of the general evil of privatisation- where people are afforded access to the most basic of support and dignity only as long as someone can pay for it. Carers often, as I said, genuinely care, but they are employees. These employers may give them training (may) and support (ditto) and are bound by employment law, but they are after a profit and if that means giving your client the hour she paid for and not a moment more, then that's the rule. With a capital 'C'.

So what about the lay carers, these caregivers? We don't get paid or trained, but we don't get governed either. This does not make us better than the professionals. There have been horror stories of people being abused by both professional carers and family and friends, neither ground is exempt from accusations of cruelty or neglect. The self-government however means that we have no limitations on how long we work or under what conditions. If we do our job properly¹ then you carry on until a) you're done; or b) you need to stop. You don't walk away.

So where do I stand on these carer professionals then? Well first, I want them nationalised. You simply cannot have human needs² regulated by a marketplace centred on profit. Of course the government can't be relied upon to do it right, but at least they should be operating on the right principals, and are publically accountable. Ish. Secondly, professional carers are vital to the amateur. They give us a break, they can give us support and, when the time comes, they can take over. Like many carers, I suspect that when I get too old to look after my wife you will still have to pry her from my cold, dead fingers, but when you've managed that, she can be placed in the hands of properly trained, properly equipped, motivated, dedicated professionals. You can tell me, if you wish, that I am inhabiting cloud cuckoo land again³. But then I will always want to shoot for the stars. And this is my wife, anything less, and there will be trouble. You have been warned.

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benjaminpmoore

06.05.13 Front Page

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