Is the family to blame in this story?

[MrsMerryHenry]

Read this.

I'm wondering how it is that the man could have had family alive who apparently did little or nothing to help him.

lots of people live in clutter though. Or allow their houses to become cluttered in either a short or more prolonged period of time.

Have no idea what the state of this man's house was, but maybe he was just unfortunate in that it happened to be cluttered at the time he'd fallen ill. Maybe he is usually a tidy person but due to illness hadn't felt up too cleaning and had no-one around to help.

Should pictures of this poor man's house even be out their?

He died of a heart attack, and because the people who were supposed to save him, didn't. He didn't die because his house was cluttered.

If if if,... what exactly is the point of speculating on what his family did or didn't do, when we know nothing about them?

What we do know, is that the paramedics appear to have decided he's not worthy of life (although it sounds like he had a worthwhile and reasonably active life) because his domestic skills didn't meet their approval. That's horrifying. If I had a heart attack today, my house is in a tip (because of post christmas/ new year inertia, not going to tackle it until tomorrow) and I hope any paramedics wouldn't judge my right to life on the basis of my housekeeping standards.

For all we know, he might have been having a clearout. And we all know what a house looks like when you're actually clearing it out...but anyway, that is completely irrelevant and frankly none of our business.

I've been wondering that myself, LB. I think it's important for me because I know several people who are living in varying circumstances of neglect - either familial neglect or cluttered and even filthy conditions. I'm not happy to leave them in those situations, and I'm appalled that this man's living situation led to such horrific treatment by the medics. So this subject interests me.

Well I think you have to look at the reasons for why they are living in this state. Sometimes, it's because they refuse to allow anyone to come in and clean it up for them. Many old people have a fierce independence and wildly resent any attempt to interfere with that by unsolicited help from a family member or a charity or a government agent. In fact, when I think about it every single one of the old people I've come across living in these conditions, has been doing so precisely because they insist on it.

I have a friend who had an elderly relative living in this kind of squalor. When she visited her and started organising her stuff and asking her what could be binned and what better organised, offering her Dh's services to put up shelves etc., the old woman started screaming at her to get out of her house and leave her alone. She then phoned up her mum, crying down the phone about how my friend had upset all her stuff, interfered with her privacy, etc,

You've got to be very careful about telling older people how they can live. All of us could see that my friend technically was right, the house should have been cleaned up, but actually she was wrong, because it wasn't her house, it wasn't her problem, and she simply didn't have the right to be so officious as to take it upon herself to "organise" this woman.

I'm not saying it's always the case that OP's prevent anyone from helping them, but I used ot work for an OP charity and have just realised that I hadn't come across one old person who lived in this manner, who said "I'd really like someone to sort this out for me". Every single one of them refused offers of help.

I am not the world's tidiest person but if I were to die before dh, I have absolutely no doubt that dh would live in the sort of place that the poor victim lived in because dh is a complete hoarder and thinks nothing of piling rooms full of boxes filled with things that he can't bear to throw or give away.

If dh had other living relatives, there is little they could do to stop him from living in that state and it really not be any sort of reflection on them!

ditto, sis - in fact I fight a constant battle against dh trying to turn our home into that sort of place. (He's FINALLY cleared out the junkshop conservatory after three bloody months of promises only to put a TV stand with TV, DVD player, various other electronic devices and a thousand cables in front of the back door...)

MrsMerryHenry - what aspect of this 'interests you' exactly? are you fascinated by clutter or what? you seem overly keen to establish that this man was beign wilfully neglected by his family.

mrsmerryhenry-this mans living situation did not lead (as you put it) to such horrific treatment by the medics.

If the story is accurate it seems to me that it was the inhumane and bigoted attitudes of the medics themselves which informed their treatment of this poor man.

Bit of a bizarre op and ever so slightly misses the point..

I used to watch "how clean is your house" from pure fascination as to how these people wound up living in such unbelievable squalor. Many of them had tragic stories. It was amazing to see how they were cajoled and encouraged into letting go of decades of built up junk and having their homes organised by the (reasonably kind) presenters.

Not the family's fault for the reasons given by others.

Ah, see, the existance of 'how clean is your house' and similar meant I could finally explain to people, with some brevity, but some hope of getting the idea across, what sort of house I was raised in.

Apart from the one cousin mentioned, we don't know if there was any other family, do we?

My step-mother was a social worker for the elderly for years. I cannot tell you how many cases she had on her books of people living in the most appalling conditions and yet, she could do very little to help them UNLESS they agreed to her help.

Some people DID have family close by and the bad news is, that family were not interested and many times she was told "You're social services, you deal with it. That's what you're paid for!"

Some families are just not interested.

Other families, as I've described, can't help as much as they would like because the person involved won't let them.

OP, the article mentiones Mr. B being to proud to have a cleaner. YOu can not make someone accept help, etc...so, even if he couldn't keep his house in an "acceptable" state, there is no way you can just make them accept help.
Forcing help and ignoring the persons wishes would mean you take an individuals right of choice away, you would take their dignity.

I am really saddened by the attitude those paramedics had and truely hope that they will be dealt with appropriately....how dare they being the judge of who deserves help and deserves to live .

ask a silly question.....
what's the point of asking why his family didn't help?
it's absolutely irrelevant to his death and unkind to his family who are grieving
if he hoarded items,that would be nothing to do with familial input anyway.
you're just tittle tattling mrs mh

I don't want to get into the whole 'family' debate here - we don't know the full story.

We don't even know for sure the exact circumstances under which the two paramedics were arrested. It's in a newspaper so we believe? I don't.

I'm not saying it didn't happen the way that article discribed just that 'innocent until proven guilty' etc.

I just want to stand up for my profession and the many hard-working, compassionate colleagues I have had the privilege of working with...this is a story of two peoples attitudes and I hope it doesn't lead to the assumption that we're all out there playing god.

scardy...don't think I implied that all paramedics are playing god, etc...just wondered about them 2....

surely not resuscitating is not an option unless it is stated in patients notes etc in hospital
they made a catastrophic error and risk bringing their profession into disrepute

no you didn't Fairlady. I didn't add that comment in responce to any one post just the whole thread. I'd really hate to think that we would all be judged on the back of two peoples decision.

If they really did make their decision not to attempt resus based on his living conditions that is a deplorable act and they should face the toughest punishment, no doubt they will.

sorry about typos in last post

I read that the house clearance company put the pictures out to show that it wasn't filthy or disgusting or unhygienic, just very very cluttered.

He had had 2 hip replacements & was overweight so found it hard to get about & tidy up. His neighbours said he was a pleasant & sociable man but he was embarrassed about the state of the house so wouldn't let anybody in, & wouldn't have home helps either.

That the paramedics felt they had the right to decide whether to treat him is appalling

yes i also read that ponders

scardy....I agree...and I also am hoping that the story is made up, tbh....because it just would be so sad if not, iykwim.

i don't think the story is made up, i read that the police were involved becos the ambulance control staff had contacted them due to recording of tel call