As resident MN povvo and pleb who has done care work I'm sorry if you've read this on my other posts before however I have read some comments here and I just would like to clarify a few things, having done agency care work also I've worked in over 100 care/residential homes over the years and if anyone is interested, I'd like to highlight this for you 💔
Carers are not only on minimum wage, but also skeleton crew, so often you'll find 3 carers to care for maybe 80 people between them. If it's night shift one carer will be preparing pots of potatoes and veg for the kitchen staff next morning. Not in every home but majority. That leaves 2 carers to shower, toilet, dress, settle and medicate huge numbers of people, often a few serious cases of dementia or other mental illness from one or two residents will dictate the time of one carer, leaving lions share to just one.
We're assaulted regularly from patients and will literally hug the same person who's just spat at us, punched or kicked us, once they're calmer and need reassuring they're okay now.
Care homes DO NOT provide toiletries. So across the board most carers SPEND THEIR OWN MONEY AND TIME stocking up their own bags with bodywashes, talc, sprays and other bits and pieces to make their residents smell clean. I've worked in some affluent care homes with residents used to some fancy toiletries to then be washed in homebargain shower gel because their family haven't provided them with hygiene products.
Often carers bring in things to donate. I remember about 10 years ago a staff member from one place I worked posted in a local community group asking for any cups and saucers because she wanted to start doing afternoon teas (this woman locally was known from a rough family) and people accused her of trying to grift cups and saucers. I didn't know her as a pal but when I commented, "why the fuck would Marie want 80 cups and saucers? Get to fuck she's doing something nice" I was also given abuse for trying to steal. 🙄😂 Marie and I are friends now 🥰 carers will buy older people with dementia things like dolls or clothes and we often use our outside work connections to arrange things for the residents.
(If anyone knows me IRL this won't surprise you but I once sent a local pub singer a picture of my boobs so he'd come into the home I worked on mu favourite residents birthday and sing to her. That was pre 4 kids 😂 carers going above and beyond!)
If someone is dying past our shift times and we've been sat with someone long enough we can't just leave them mid death if they've become attached to our presence. I've had staff members not on shift do MY dc school pick up so I can stay unpaid, to stroke a man's hair and pray with him to a god I don't believe in and give as much comfort as I can in his last hours for no payment to still be treated as a benefit scrounger because I got tax credits.
Not just dying or old people, say if you're working with autistic or learning disabilities and there is a disco (god love my clients, they've often loved a good disco!) And staff are too stretched to take them, say a few other clients are unwell, often a off shift staff member will pop in and take the client so they dint miss out. Again, unpaid often if staff is full, just busy.
Unsociable hours means are colleagues are our friends or even partners but sometimes we still have to complain about them or carry them if they're crap at their job. And some carers don't like dealing with poo. It's never fun to work with them.
If one resident becomes attached to one staff member they may become difficult for other staff, one lady wouldn't use the toilet unless it was either myself or another lass taking her, so we made sure we didn't take annual leave over the same weeks of summer and as I lived about 5 minutes walk away from the place, if the other lass wasn't in and my client was blind with rage about the other staff, I'd pop in, as would the other lass and just take her to bed or the loo because even though it's highly unprofessional or classed as abuse even, the idea our resident with acute dementia would get an impacted bowel when we could help for all in all 20 minutes unpaid 3 times a week, was really nothing. But if at any point this residents daughter wanted to give us a bunch of flowers, we'd get into shit.
There is probably 100s more examples I could give and if anyone has family in care homes or need carers yourselves and have any questions please tag me or inbox me, I'm no longer working in homes but friends do so I can always find out latest rules etc.
I am the first to say, some carers are shitty humans. But so are teachers, scientists, lawyers, people.
On the whole, they're lovely and even if they have limited skills academically or seem "a bit rough", on the whole, they're giving Time, money and love to People who the rest of society couldn't give a shite about.
Thanks for coming to my Ted talk. I'll be here most likely on every carer post until I'm banned from boring the tits off you all x