To ask if caters really ask patients if they're happy to be treated by them if the patient is white and the carer is black?

[daysayso]

Is this a thing? Really? Because someone told me today it was.

I then asked if the carer who is black volunteers to do this or if it is enforced on them by their employer and they didn't know.

Either way is far from acceptable but does this happen?

Can someone involved in caring please clear this up for me?

Is there a possibility that it's to protect staff?

Surely it's better for staff to not be put in the situation in the first place rather than wait for them to be racially abused.

Youth but which are now quite offensive

Yes, I suppose….I just found the mention of skin colour jarring. To have the choice between male and female carers seems more justifiable somehow, where personal care is concerned, and I know Mum would never have chosen a male carer, but none of the profiles were of men.

@CafeCremeMerci but that’s related to asking for your consent before providing care, not related to the carer’s ethnicity, which is what the op is about.
Did white carers not ask you?

No, we don’t have this with my company.

And we don’t refer to them as ‘patients’ either as we are not medical.

Surely every carer should ask the people in their care if they are happy for them to do something before they do it?

This.

Interestingly, in a lot of places staffed predominantly by first generation immigrant women, if you filtered for race/immigration and you were a white carer, your entire caseload would be racists. Which would be a bit odd.

The male / female thing is very important.

I was just 28, couple of days after surgery, I vomited 🤢 vast quantities of green stuff everywhere. I needed someone to help me in the shower. I wouldn't have liked that to have been a man. I cried at the indignity of the whole thing and that was with female nurses inc a young student, who'd never washed anyone's hair before.

Yet I've had a male nurse look after me in a high dependency ward. And I've had male gynaecologists with their fingers up me none which bothers me.
But I'd never want a male to wash me.

My mum lived in a culturally diverse neighbourhood in Manchester and genuinely accepted everyone regardless of their background, religion or ethnicity. Unfortunately she developed dementia and seemed to lose the ability to think before she spoke, a bit like young children do! So she would come out with some awful comments about a stranger she saw in the street or in a shop, referring to their build, clothes, hairstyle or race, which were very upsetting and biased. I used to be really anxious when we were out, wondering what she was going to say - she had no volume control either! people were however understanding if I was able to mention that she had dementia and her close neighbours were not offended as they knew it was not personal but it must have upset them.

The staff at her care home in later years did not appear bothered by anything she said or did, they were wonderful in their care of her despite her anger and violence towards them. I was embarrassed though!

I did specify my carers be female. Because of my background that's necessary. Race? No.

It’s wise and polite to ask for consent no matter who you’re working with in a professional sense. This weekend my golf tutor asked if he could touch my hand before he moved my fingers and corrected my grip. It about manners not race.

All this is very true, I've known clients who were FE POWs and could not have coped with having a Japanese carer for that reason and if anyone said that "Well it wasn't young people who did that to them" it would be ignoring the fact that the people who did do it to them were at the time young and that is what they would see. Dementia can take people back to places they should not have to relive. Not fair on them or the carers involved, but a very particular set of circumstances though.

Absolutely does not happen. That's the biggest load of weapons grade thunderbollocls I've ever heard.

The only time I've known of this to happen is after the carer had been racially abused by a number of service users in the community. The carer started to ask service users on the first meeting if they were ok with them providing care, so they didn't have to put themselves in the position of going through it again. It's awful, but there are still a lot of racist people out there, and care companies do not, or can not, protect their carers from it. They all tout a "zero abuse" policy, but then excuse it when it involves people who are elderly, have dementia, are sick, have mental illness etc.

Eh?

Load of tosh waiting to weed out the racists with their yeah buts.

The service user who had been in a Japanese prison camp as a PP mentioned, that's not racism that is PTSD

It was PTSD, but all people saw was that my great uncle would be aggressive (verbally and physically) and none compliant with Asian carers, but with any other carers - regardless of age, race, ethnicity or religion - he was as meek as a lamb. As his treatment in WWII was something that was very personal and traumatic to him, it wasn't something he ever talked about and at first nobody connected his experience in the Japanese POW camp to the fact he was only verbally and physically abusive to the young Filipino carer who was doing his personal care, but nobody else.

It was only because of something he said offhand to another carer that made them go and look up the reference and they realised he had been in a Japanese POW camp and it clicked into place as to why he had such a bad reaction to the Filipino carer. For someone who didn't know his history as a POW in WWII it just presented that he was only abusive to the Asian carers and so must have some sort of racial prejudice against them.

In a situation where a person requires personal care, if there is a genuine reason why a POC is unsuitable to fulfil that role due to safety concerns for either the carer or the client (whether it's because of past abuse or trauma the client has suffered with someone of a specific race/ethnicity; mental health issues including dementia/Alzheimer's or just that they're a raging racist who won't hesitate to abuse a carer if they're a POC) then I think it is relevent to ask the question, but I think there are far more appropriate ways to ask it than the carer standing there and essentially asking "Is it going to be a problem that I'm black?"

Except it’s not about consent, is it? It definitely is about racism if service users are being asked if they consent to a black care giver…

Hmm if only I hadn’t heard a carer acquaintance stating the company they work for will not employee black people for a myriad of racist reason. That conversation was this year.

Exh has carers & it is very rare to get a white British carer, the only ones he has ever complained about have been the ones who turn up & either can't speak English or who can speak English but then speak to the other carer in a foreign language. Exh takes many drugs due to having MS, heart problems, Type 2 Diabetes & several other conditions, his medication regime is complicated & if they can't speak English how can they understand his care plan, his medication schedule & complete the care plan?

My DH is a big guy with a shaved head, he is also a paramedic who wears a dark uniform and duty boots. He felt awful the night he was called out to a little old man who thought he was a Nazi ☹️ Once he figured out the problem he excused himself from direct contact and let the others give care.

So yeah, I can see this being a thing for patients with an altered mental state. I mean hell, everyone should have final say on who provides care for them, even if the only reason is they are being racist.

And no, that isn’t some form of me thinking it’s ok to be racist in case anyone is going to accuse me of anything.

As I said at the start of my post, EVERY carer asked me. The black, the man, the highly tattooed, the Scottish, the white. ALL of them... I think the assumption here was because they were black, rather than because they all ask.

You do have to remember though, that a carer needs to speak good clear English for most elderly, This doesn't come down to colour. My fathers 2 carers were Nigerian and he loved them. But he had had others in the past, white included that he could not understand. No one on earth is going to tell me this is a racist issue, it was a case of making his life pleasant as it should be.

I wouldn't call you cynical but I might call you something else ...

This should have been reported to CQC as that agency was breaking the law.

Did you report the agency ?