Day care concern by a carer

Audlem Online has received the following message from a carer, Celia Bloor, about the importance of the Day Care facilities in Audlem and across Cheshire that Age Concern wants to stop supporting.

If you are a user of the Day Care facilities, or a carer, or are simply more concerned than Age Concern about this service for elderly residents, please do let Audlem Online know.

A carer's viewMany of the Day Care 'clients' have children who work and they are able to be picked up by the dial-a-ride and brought out for the day. Well, if it ceased completely, my mother would not get to sit and talk with anyone else of her generation. We would have to invite people round and it is not easy at that age, even going to a strange bathroom. Plus, I would have to be there to provide refreshments and someone would have to bring the visitor and collect them or stay.

At present she sees only immediate family and carers during the rest of the week. When the weather is bad you can't even linger with a wheelchair to chat in the street! In fact, many times last winter, we decided she was better off staying in when the weather was cold.

With the present set up, we know that from 10.30am to 3.30pm on a Tuesday she is in familiar safe surroundings, with conversation kept going by the leaders. Also, a good meal which makes a change from the frozen meals she has for the rest of the week.

They run quizzes and have singers or other entertainment, make a game out of chairbased exercise and about three times a year have clothes to buy.

Every now and then they take them all out for a pub lunch. I usually go too so that I can keep an eye on her in a strange place. For some of them with few relatives, this may be the only time they eat out in the year but, as it is with the familiar group, they really enjoy it.

You can get home-based care but that is only one person and costs at least £16 an hour. I feel that the 'teaclub' has given her a sense of identity within this community which she moved to in 1998.

Social Services have assessed that she would benefit from two days a week day care but it is too much travelling to take her anywhere else and have to go back again to collect her.

Steps, chairs and toilets are the important things for an older person. Even one large step can mean a lot of strain. Chairs need to be fairly firm but cushioned, high and with arms.

I don't think my mum would be suited at the coffee shop or to sit long at the Scout & Guide Hall or Public Hall. Toilets at the Shroppie are too small to get a frame in – the Lord Combermere gets full points for ramp and toilets – chairs in restaurant OK too.

Thornton House chairs are of course ideal.

When you get to 93 a lot of your friends have died. Mum's husband died 15 years ago, brother and sister long gone, a sister in law is in Southampton, an old friend in Salisbury – but all too old to travel to meet. Even those who have lived in the village for a long time – Tom Sedgwick, Edna Williams are not seen out on the streets much.

Mum's carers get her into night clothes at 6.30pm or so, so evening do's are not much good. She couldn't sit or concentrate for long enough to go to most village events anyway. You end up wheeling her round garden parties and fetes which are good.

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