bexxie said:
Hi Xena
There must be a relief worker (community carer) who can cover when your mum has a break as if the old dear needs a consistent level of care then this is something to be arranged. I am qualified in nursing and specialise in geriatric care and to be honest this would worry me that a system hadnt been set up.
Ask your mum to ring about this...will give you a break at the very least!
Bex
Well she doesn't work FOR anyone...as in, she doesn't work for the social servicesl or anything.
What it is, is she used to be a carer working for social services. She would have old people coming and going every few weeks in her house...they would come, and stay for a couple of weeks, and then go home, and then we'd get somebody else for a couple of weeks, and then the first one would come back again....it was to give their families a break from them.
So, inbetween that (when she didn't have people staying with her), she used to help Lily (the old lady in question at the moment) around her house - cleaning and doing shopping for her etc. This was a private arrangement...Lily had advertised that she needed a home help in the local papers.
Anyway, Lily got older, and she knew that my mam had elderly people staying with her, so she said that she would like to be put on that scheme to come and stay with us for a few weeks on and off also, as she lived alone and was finding it difficult to cope.
So at first that's what happened. She became like one of the others and came and went every few weeks.....but then as she got older, she started wanting to stay more and more and more....so obviously my mam couldn't have any other elderly people whilst she was there, as she was taking up the spare bedroom....
until one day she kind of moved in. After that I'm not sure exactly what happened, but because my mam could only look after her and nobody else (we had my grandma living with us too in our other spare room)....she kind of stopped working for the social services. Lily gives her some money every week out of her pension for food and stuff, and thats kinda it....she's more like a lodger than anything else. My mam is classed as a carer, but she doesn't get paid for it as such - just what Lily gives her.
So I don't think she could get any help from anyone. It doesn't seem like she could anyway. If she goes on holiday she just leaves me to look after Lily, which is a pain in the arse but I've never said no obviously.
Lily is almost like a second grandma to me since she's been there since I was like 8 or something (my own grandma who also used to live with us died just before I turned 15). So if anything were to happen for her I would feel so guilty! I do think it's a total pain that my mam just EXPECTS me to look after her though, no say in the matter.
