C
Chesca
Guest
Following Anne Robinson's recent comments to a contestant on her show, I discovered yesterday that a letter I had fired off was published in the Mail on Tuesday. For anybody who happened to read it though, the full content is below. They obviously had to edit it as there are not enough trees in the world to accommodate my witterings.
'I say hands off Anne Robinson! Anne is a patron of the Alzheimers Society and has written very movingly about her own mother's suffering of the disease and her experiences of the care system. I should add that my Grandfather was born and bred in Caernarfon and I was born and bred in Liverpool. Anne's cynical comments make me laugh like a drain.
Perhaps Ann speaks from bitter experience. Believe me, if you weren't at the beginning, by the time you have looked after a dementia sufferer and experienced the minefield that is the carer system you will by the end be very cynical and bitter.
My mother was a patient in a secure hospital ward for the elderly suffering from dementia-related illnesses wherein she had all her jewellery stolen - grandmother's wedding ring, engagement ring, gold watch - as did many other patients I discovered following conversations with their relatives. One 80 year old, completely incapacitated by his illness had a gold chain removed from around his neck, a gift placed there by his grandmother when he was 11 years of age! The official explanation was that these things were flushed down the toilet (my mother was incontinent and changed by staff) or lost in the laundry (we had to do Mum's laundry). Any protestation was met with hostility, not compassion.
Most professional carers of the elderly are the very finest, overworked and underpaid at a level almost obscene in a civilized society, and we as carers of dementia sufferers couldn't do without them. However, in my opinion, their silence in the face of such blatant abuse makes them complicit in the act of theft.'
End
So saying, if I had been that particular contestant I think I would have sued!
Regards
Chesca
'I say hands off Anne Robinson! Anne is a patron of the Alzheimers Society and has written very movingly about her own mother's suffering of the disease and her experiences of the care system. I should add that my Grandfather was born and bred in Caernarfon and I was born and bred in Liverpool. Anne's cynical comments make me laugh like a drain.
Perhaps Ann speaks from bitter experience. Believe me, if you weren't at the beginning, by the time you have looked after a dementia sufferer and experienced the minefield that is the carer system you will by the end be very cynical and bitter.
My mother was a patient in a secure hospital ward for the elderly suffering from dementia-related illnesses wherein she had all her jewellery stolen - grandmother's wedding ring, engagement ring, gold watch - as did many other patients I discovered following conversations with their relatives. One 80 year old, completely incapacitated by his illness had a gold chain removed from around his neck, a gift placed there by his grandmother when he was 11 years of age! The official explanation was that these things were flushed down the toilet (my mother was incontinent and changed by staff) or lost in the laundry (we had to do Mum's laundry). Any protestation was met with hostility, not compassion.
Most professional carers of the elderly are the very finest, overworked and underpaid at a level almost obscene in a civilized society, and we as carers of dementia sufferers couldn't do without them. However, in my opinion, their silence in the face of such blatant abuse makes them complicit in the act of theft.'
End
So saying, if I had been that particular contestant I think I would have sued!
Regards
Chesca
