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	WOMAN'S HOUR TX: 08 JAN 2008 Older Carers

	Downloaded from www.bbc.co.uk/radio4 THE ATTACHED TRANSCRIPT WAS TYPED FROM A RECORDING AND NOT COPIED FROM AN ORIGINAL SCRIPT. BECAUSE OF THE RISK OF MISHEARING AND THE DIFFICULTY IN SOME CASES OF IDENTIFYING INDIVIDUAL SPEAKERS, THE 麻豆约拍 CANNOT VOUCH FOR ITS COMPLETE ACCURACY. TX: 08.01.08 - Elderly Women as Carers PRESENTER: JENNI MURRAY MURRAY Now when the women's movement began to examine what it was that prevented women from fulfilling their ambitions and earning their own living campaigns for good quality childcare went to the top of its political agenda. What was forgotten was the other caring role thousands of women are still expected to adopt - looking after elderly and possibly infirm parents. It often happens when women are in their 50s and 60s, when the children are ready to fly the nest and the women feel they may have a little time to themselves and to earn some money in readiness for retirement. So as part of our social care season what should we be doing to ease their burden? Well Jane Burd, who's assistant director of the Princess Royal Trust for Carers, Christine Ransome-Wallis, who's 61 and has been looking after her 89-year-old mother for 12 years, she's in Birmingham. Christine, how did you manage at the outset because you had your mother, two teenage children and a full-time job? RANSOME-WALLIS It caused lots of problems because you get caught in the middle of the generation gap. So growing teenagers - they've got their way of doing things - mum was older - she'd got her way of doing things, they both tended to come to me to complain about the other one. So there were a lot of issues to work out, although they were both really keen to have nana come and live with us. MURRAY And how much care did your mother need? RANSOME-WALLIS At that stage she had severe arthritis and mobility problems but she could walk on two sticks and she could get around, it largely has got worse for us since then. MURRAY How did it develop? RANSOME-WALLIS She had a problem with her knee replacement, which ended up she had to have her one leg amputated in 2001, so she's now - well has been in a wheelchair since then, so we've had to adapt the house. And the children aren't there now, so there's only me to look after her. And she's getting older as well, so there's all the problems that come with ageing. Meanwhile I'm getting older too and where's my life going? MURRAY What impact has it had on your health? RANSOME-WALLIS I had a breakdown in 2004 when I was working and I haven't been able to work since. I took - forced early retirement just to become a full-time carer. And then I keeled over again in May last year because it all got too much but at least I could see the signs so I asked for help. MURRAY When you say you keeled over what do you mean? RANSOME-WALLIS I got very depressed and was on the verge of another breakdown and I knew that I just couldn't be superwoman any longer, I needed some help and it wasn't mum's fault. But it does get very hard going because I'm sacrificing my life to help her and the government is paying me £19.75 a week to do that whereas if she was in a home it would be costing them £500 a week. MURRAY Jane, I mean we know that carers save government millions of pounds every year but one of the things that's Christine's just identified, this idea of sort of being on her own and having to cope, is something that we've heard from other people, I mean an e-mail from Lillian Wellbone says: Isolation is my biggest worry, causing frustration and loss of patience with the one I'm caring for. This then leaves you feeling guilty and such a failure. How common is that as a response? BURD I think sadly it is very common and certainly in research that we've done we heard that 70% of the people we talked to said that they'd experienced emotional stress and 60% felt that they'd experienced physical stress even. So sadly it is very common. And carers do certainly sacrifice their own health quite often and their financial status as Christine was talking about. And also their social life. And that's why our network of carers centres have a very important role to play in trying to help people manage those different stresses. And we have 133 centres throughout the UK and they are there in order to help carers manage those sort of stresses and strains on their lives. MURRAY We know that it's not only women who care for elderly relatives but I think when we look at the figures it tends to be male partners who do the caring if it's a child or in this case a daughter it tends to be the daughters who look after their parents. We always have to ask ourselves why hasn't it been more of a priority for the women's movement to look at this issue as a whole? BURD I think one of the difficulties is - surrounds the fact that it's perhaps still seen as a family issue, not society's issue. And that is something that affects men and women. I think you're right there are many more women that care than men and in the working age population the split is around 57/43, that sort of percentage. But one of the real difficulties that we experience is that many people don't identify themselves with the word carer, which actually makes it difficult for them to access the help that is there to support them. MURRAY Linda, if Christine says that she's getting £19.75 a week, I mean it's a shockingly low amount of money for a woman to live on and to look after her parent on, is she missing out somewhere? BURD No I think unfortunately many carers do have very little money to manage on. There is something called a carers allowance which is there to support people, which is £48.65 a week. But when you reach retirement age, although you can still go on claiming that, if you receive retirement pension usually you won't receive that money. So you will just receive a premium on your other benefits. So actually people do live on quite restricted incomes and over long term caring that can mean that people are very seriously disadvantaged, particularly when they get to pension age and they're looking at the end of their lives without additional occupational pensions for instance. MURRAY How do you manage Christine? RANSOME-WALLIS I do get my old age pension as well but as Jane just said you only get - once you turn 60 you only get allowances for carers if you're on pension credit and I'm looking at the figures in front of me - because I'm a carer I get £27.50 in a week, less the deduction for the people who live with me, so because mum lives with me they take £7.40 a week off me. I mean they give it you with one hand, take it back, does that make me feel valued, knowing that I'm being paid 11 pence an hour to look after her? MURRAY How did you cope with the benefit system because you've already fuddled my brain just to work out exactly how we got to this figure, how did you cope with it? RANSOME-WALLIS It's very difficult because, as a carer, you don't get told what you're entitled to, you have to find out and fight for it. Jane mentioned carers centres, we're very lucky in Birmingham that the council has opened a carers centre and put a lot of money into it over the last 12 months and there's information there that - to help carers. I belong to Birmingham Carers Association, I'm fairly assertive, but there's an awful lot of others who aren't, so you know we have to help each other because the system just doesn't tell you what you can have. MURRAY And how do you get a break Christine? RANSOME-WALLIS I'm very lucky, I get respite care, our local PCT has a respite care ward and mum goes in there on a regular basis. But I'm - not everybody is as fortunate as I am and that only started by chance. But the council are revising their system and we've been working with them, so that all carers can have fairer access to breaks because at the moment some get a lot, some get nothing and they're trying to use the money they've got to make it more equitable and that's got to help. MURRAY Jane, we heard the minister - Ivan Lewis - on You and Yours yesterday say that there's going to be a complete overhaul, giving people more control of the care that's offered, how is that going to work for this age group? BURD Well I think there's a lot of good in this because it should give people more control and flexibility about the services they're receiving. But obviously it's going to have to be done in the context where people get good assessments of their needs, where they get the right amount of money to purchase the care the need and where they're supported with brokerage and other support to make sure that they can assess the services they need. And I think there would be concerns about ... MURRAY So does that mean that they're going to need to bring in somebody say to get the elderly relative up in the morning, to have them bathed and washed if they can't manage themselves, help with food, help with cleaning - are those the kind of services you're talking about? BURD Those are the sort of services that families are often looking to buy because those are the sort of things that can enable them to go on managing at home yes. MURRAY What would improve your life Christine? RANSOME-WALLIS Certainly somebody coming in. You were just talking about what help would we need. If mum goes to a day centre which she does a couple of days a week, it gets her out for four or five hours, so Friday can be my cleaning day so I can clean the kitchen floor because otherwise her wheelchair's going across leaving tyre tracks, it's simple things like that where if somebody could come in and help me with cleaning I could go down the gym to get a bit fitter and to lose a bit of weight which I need to do. And you talked about the isolation, that's a serious problem, so maybe we could use some of this money to actually pay people to come in and talk to our loved ones for a couple of hours so that we can get out and have a break ourselves. Lots of simple things that could be done. MURRAY Is any of that possible Jane? BURD Well organisations like Cross Roads provide sitting services for carers and I think many people value what that brings into the household beyond the ability to have a break and as Christine says that can be very valuable both for the person with care needs, for the elderly person they're looking after and the carer because they have a little bit of the world coming into the household and isolation is a very serious problem for carers. MURRAY Well Jane Burd and Christine Ransome-Wallis, thank you both very much indeed. Back to the Transcripts homepage Back to the You and Yours homepage The 麻豆约拍 is not responsible for external websites

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