Every day in the UK, 6,000 people become a carer, often completely unexpectedly. They may feel unprepared for the sudden shift in their relationship with a loved one, and suddenly see the life they once had changed beyond recognition.
So, to highlight the incredible work they do every day, we are celebrating each and every one of them this Carers Week.
“The carer network is the unpaid workforce of our country. They are superheroes behind closed doors,” says our Welfare Caseworker, Irene Ramsden. “We need to do more to support them; these people are doing a brilliant job, but theirs isn’t seen as an essential service, even though it is. That’s why Carers Week and events like it are so good, because they get carers connected. It tells people they have rights, they are entitled to help, and there are people who will help them get it, even if it’s just signposting them in the right direction.”
This very thing happened to one beneficiary when his wife had a stroke in 2003. Both only in their 40s at the time, this was something neither of them had ever imagined, but it changed both their lives forever.
“People told me to seek help, but I said I didn’t need any, and could manage by myself,” says the husband, who also worked as a full-time firefighter while trying to care for his wife. “I wouldn’t listen to anyone about what I could or couldn’t get in the way of help. I just thought I could do it. I’d looked after people all my life, so I wanted to look after her as well. But I didn’t realise how much it would affect me, until it eventually became too much.”
“I’d looked after people all my life, so I wanted to look after her as well. But I didn’t realise how much it would affect me.”
Beneficiary
He struggled on alone for a few years, leaving his job in the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service to become a full-time carer. It was during their rehabilitation visit to our Cumbrian centre, Jubilee House, in 2012 where Irene suspected something needed to be done, and quickly.
“We discovered he was manually lifting his wife in and out of bed himself,” she says. “He had been diagnosed with Parkinson’s but was still living as his wife’s sole carer, with no help from anyone else. We knew we had to do something. Part of the original referral was to see what support groups they could access at home, but it very quickly became more than that. Our priority was to get them safe, and get the care package in place as soon as we could.”
Irene managed to get the couple – then aged 53 and 58 – registered with the necessary care provision through social services, spoke to GPs and community nurses, and helped with applications to their financial statutory entitlements. She also organised an occupational therapist to complete an assessment of their home, which they eventually left to move to a safer bungalow, also supported by Irene. Their bathroom was adapted into a wet room, doors widened and ramps installed, and Irene liaised with social services for two carers to visit them both five times a day to help take the pressure off the husband and let him find time to focus on his own health, as well as his wife’s.
“The carer network is the unpaid workforce of our country. They are superheroes behind closed doors. We need to do more to support them.”
Irene Ramsden
For the husband, this has provided some desperately-needed relief. Like many carers, he says it is the invisible impact on his life that he has struggled to deal with: “If you break your arm, you have a cast. If you bash your head, you have stitches. But no-one sees you if you’re a carer, and unless you’re also caring for someone you love, people just don’t get it.”
“I wish I’d asked for help sooner,” he adds. “You think you know it all, but with this, you know absolutely nothing, so let people help you.”
If you are caring for someone – or are facing the possibility that you might have to start – and would like support from The Fire Fighters Charity, get in touch today either online or by phoning 0800 3898820.
