Don’t patronise me!

Eighty-seven-year-old Mary – in frail health and prone to memory lapses – insists that she wants to live at home, against the advice of health staff. Deborah Dreyer and Giles Gardner worked hard to help her. Graham Hopkins reports

CASE NOTES

PRACTITIONERS: Deborah Dreyer, community care worker, and Giles Gardner, operations manager.
FIELD: Older people’s services.
LOCATION: Devon.
CLIENT: Mary Bellinger, 87, is a retired schoolteacher, previously unknown to social services.
CASE HISTORY: Mary was living independently in Yorkshire but began experiencing minor memory problems which led her, more than three years ago, to move to a cottage in Devon to be near her daughter, Avril Butler, a social work academic and a former social work practitioner and manager. After a community care assessment, Mary was provided with frozen meals and some adaptations made to her house. For the best part of a year, with Avril’s support, things seemed fine. However, Mary’s memory began deteriorating and she started having problems with preparing meals and managing personal care. After a fall and hospital stay, health care staff did not believe that Mary could be supported safely at home. Despite the risks, Mary and Avril strongly disagreed and, in partnership with social services, looked at putting together a support programme.
DILEMMA: Hospital and medical staff felt that Mary could not be supported adequately at home, and felt that residential or nursing care would be a more suitable placement.
RISK FACTOR: Mary was in poor health in hospital and has mobility and memory difficulties – all of which will deteriorate further.
OUTCOME: Mary returned home where she has remained since and now has a live-in carer.

Despite progressive moves within social care towards a person-centred culture, when it comes to older people there is a tendency for the medical model to predominate: ageing is thus seen as a time when your body and mind fail and falter. And protective services – “for your own good” – begin to circle.

But, despite memory and body lapses, sometimes you can still be sure to know your mind. Mary Bellinger, 87, certainly knows hers. In 2002, the former schoolteacher had moved from Yorkshire to Devon to be near her university lecturer daughter, Avril Butler. “Within a year or so it became clear that her orientation and memory were deteriorating,” says Avril. “I was often dealing with minor everyday difficulties and confusions – her thinking someone had taken her purse, for example.”

Community care worker Deborah Dreyer agrees. “Mary’s memory was getting worse – she started muddling up clothes and leaving frozen meals lying around the kitchen.”

A little more than two years ago, Mary had a stroke. “She was very poorly,” says Avril. “She loathed her time in hospital. I’d never known her to be violent or aggressive but in hospital she threw things at people and chucked water at nurses. She was just desperately trying to hold onto some control among people who meant to be kind but were patronising the living daylights out of her.”

Although Mary’s health improved enough for her to be transferred to the local cottage hospital, the family were told by staff – “except for a marvellous occupational therapist” – that she wasn’t suitable for returning home, and nursing care was for the best.

However, the family were having none of it. Avril says: “She was very wobbly and still very ill – but had been so distressed at being in hospital that I knew that being in care would probably kill her. So going home was a better risk: she could have some quality of life and some control over her destiny.”

For some time Mary had been unhappy with the quality of care she was receiving at home. Dreyer had been exploring the issue of direct payments and Mary became one of the first people in the locality to receive one. Dreyer is now a direct payments “champion”.

“Since we introduced champions, 63 users in our locality now have a direct payment, 36 of whom are over 65, which is fantastic,” adds operations manager Giles Gardner.

So, despite the misgivings of hospital staff, Mary returned home with a care package that included four support visits a day and a sleeping-in service. “However, within a year she had again become resentful of the home carers,” says Dreyer. “This fiercely independent woman had very clear ideas about how things should be done in her house. She resented people coming in and out of her house, and the home carers’ inability to arrive on time.” And, once again, she abhorred being patronised.

“Mary is a woman of great intellectual ability,” says Dreyer. “She read Leo Tolstoy’s War and Peace in French for the hell of it. She hated being patronised.” Avril agrees: “Mum is a very intelligent woman. Although her cognitive abilities have dwindled, her sharp, fierce intelligence never has.”

With the home care company deciding to withdraw its services, it was felt a live-in carer was the answer. “Her carer is a Zimbabwean graduate,” says Dreyer. “She’s a smashing and very educated woman: the two of them spark off each other intellectually.”

Avril agrees: “She is extraordinary and has lived in mum’s house with her for over a year. The carer – and the others who cover when she’s off – put their lives around mum: they eat when she’s hungry; they go to bed when she goes to bed; and get up when she gets up. Her life is of primary importance.”

During her time at home Mary has been critically ill, including twice with serious chest infections. “She was managed at home on a drip,” says Dreyer. “We thought we may have lost her but she’s pulled through each time. And we’re sure that one of the things that is keeping her going is that she is in her own environment. And that she is being cared for by someone who respects her and whom she respects.”

Gardner says the easy option is always to put people into care. “This is the hardest, most complicated and most demanding option. I’m proud to see workers fighting their corner and not capitulating to the pressures.

“It’s good social work at the end of the day.”

Arguments for risk