Who cares about carers?

I have heard many a time on forums & such people stating, why should we pay a benefit to people for caring when surely if they care & love the person in question that requires the care, they would do it anyway?

The thing is, yes they all would.

Caring includes everything from round the clock nursing, to completing some tasks & aiding the disabled person to do the rest themselves, to being more of a personal assistant.

It’s not about the grand sum of £59.75, if the short change that the government pays to carers was paid to a care provider to instead provide the ‘care’ it would equate to £1.70 an hour & I can’t see any outside care company providing anything for that, no where near close to the minimum wage.

This you are only entitled to if you provide 35hrs of care, of which there are many carers that provide way over this many providing 24hr care, always on call with very little respite & others that provide less & don’t get the “marvellous” sum of £59.75 but still care & aren’t any less valuable

Carers & the disabled people they care for don’t want pity mind you. Although disabled people have some limitations due to their disability, it doesn’t mean that they don’t have aspirations. By completing the tasks that the disabled person can’t do or the tasks that would take so much out of them, can mean the difference between the disabled person just ‘existing’ & the disabled person being able to concentrate on some of their own life choices whether this be working, studying, arts & crafts etc. Disabled people in this country have valuable contributions to make to society & their carers are vital in enabling disabled people to fulfil their life choices.

Carers also look after friends or relatives that are living with some of the most challenging or terminal of conditions. For a carer to slowly see their loved one taken by dementia for example must be heartbreaking, to slowly lose someone you care about over time.

People also don’t realise how heartbreaking it can be to watch someone you care about so deeply go through pain & illness. I myself always deal with a level of pain all the time, people often think how the disabled person is dealing with their condition but often the distress that the carer feels is often overlooked.

Carers often see & face the hostility that disabled people have to contend with from certain sections of society.

Carers are often the people that fight your corner for what you need, often it can be when rushed to hospital & as you are too ill, you no longer have the strength to argue yourself to remain in the hospital for treatment (you would rather be in your own bed) as the Junior Doctor fails to fully understand your condition & the gravity of the situation & wants to send you home. Your carer fights your corner, makes a “fuss”, insists on being seen by the registrar which when you do, they apologise as the information you had given the Junior had not been shared & now the registrar understands the gravity of the situation & how serious it could have been. The carer had seen it all along, this isn’t unusual.

I always wonder were carers fit into the Conservative’s “Hardworking Britain ?”

I detest this statement, what is your definition of hardworking? Would a person that owns a multi billion dollar company be your idea of hardworking because they make so much money? Would they still be the ideal hardworking person if their company dumped chemical waste & exploited their workers? Would they still be the ideal person if they never saw their family?

Just because a person may not make millions, does it mean that their contribution is any less?

Hardworking has nothing to do with the amount in which you are paid, some of the most important things that keep our society together are done by people that get no or little financial reward. We must focus on making a conscientious society & as well as a strong economy but not one where the focus is on obtaining the biggest financial reward at any cost to society.

Carers are deeply under valued & unappreciated by the state but they don’t care for people because the state tells them to, they see they are needed & are valued enormously by the people they care for. Our ability to care is one of the best aspects of humanity & if carers stopped caring the cost to the state would be enormous. The fact is that even with giving this small amount of £59.75 (too low in my opinion) to the carers in this country, it is much more “cost effective” than if the country had to employ an army of carers. It also means that even a small amount can allow the carer a break & allow them to do something they enjoy. Caring isn’t the same as looking after a loved one that has the flu. Many people often don’t understand the effort that people put into caring often the putting the person they are caring for before themselves & often can’t have a ‘day off’.

The thing is you can’t put a price on the care & support that the carers of this country provide

Carers enable, carers are anyone. They are wives, husbands, sisters, brothers, mothers, fathers & friends & regardless they will always keep on caring.

Carer’s UK