It is all a farce, and will get me on my soap box. Again.
It is high time that someone realised that if a person NEEDS to be in a care home for their own safety or health needs, then it should be provided by the state. Gone are the days when people went into a care home just cos they fancied doing so. People are in care homes becase there is no other choice of where to live. And it should be paid for by the state, i.e. My and your taxes that we have long been paying and seen no benefit for.
I didn't mind my mum's house being sold to pay care fees. What I DID mind was that the small amount raised from a 2-up,2-down mansion would only pay for a few years, and after that the local authority wouldn't pay cos the home was above their limit of about tuppence a week. So poor mum would have had to move to the smelly, stinky home that looked at us in surprise when we mentioned activities, that was within the LA Limit, or we would have to pay a top up of about £200 a week. I planned on doing that. We set aside money to make sure we could do it. We paid £55,000 for an insurance policy to pay about 70% of her care fees in 3 years time. We just wanted to know that she could stay where she was, where it had taken her a full year to settle, and didn't want her to go through that again.
How many of you can pay £55,000 for a care fees plan, and agree to paying £200 a week (£10,000 a year) to keep your relative there for maybe 20 years? That's £200,000. Don't all come rushing forward at once, I can't cope with the crush. We could afford to do it. It would mean we would have no money left to support ourselves in the same situation in perhaps 10 years time (we are both retired), but hey, who cares about us? We both took on part-time jobs in retirement to try to support mum. We are still doing them after her death. We are fortunate that we are able to, many people are not.
We won't starve, I don't think, but the situation is dire and unfair, and basically cruel.
My soap box.
Why is dementia not a nursing need? Why is it classed in the same category as someone who just wants to go into a care home? My friend's mother decided, age about 85, that she didnt want to live at home alone anymore, so she went into a care home. All paid by the state - cos she had no dementia, she had a choice of many homes. There was one that suited her, within the council's budget so in she went. Get dementia added and you can add another £200 a week to the bill. Who pays that? You and Me.
Don;t get me wrong, I am no head-banging socialist. I just don't see that the system is at all fair for people with dementia (or any other illness needing 24-hour care), to be classed as non-nursing. My MP told me I was lucky that my mother only had to pay for "hotel costs", and when I asked him to name me a hotel that would supervise medication 3 times a day, monitor my mother's movements in the dead of night (she was a wanderer), administer the anti-fungal cream to her bare bottom, bath her with the the use of a hoist, and spoon feed her at mealtimes, he declined to respond.
I can't get to grips with the current lot of politicians. Do none of them have elderly relatives with dementia? Are they all too young? Are they all too wealthy? I am waiting for a politician to tell us about his own experience with his mother or father. Have we had one do that? I don't recall.
If not, why not? There's 600-odd of them dammit. Sure some of them have a parent with a dementia-related illness and some experience of the tortuous system of getting funding for them. The first one that comes along gets my vote.
Just got off the soap box,and going to bed.
Margaret
