Ruth Dudley Edwards: The emphasis of care for the elderly should be on leaving people their independence as long as possible
From the beginning of the pandemic, we were told of carnage in care homes, of a shortage of Personal Protection Equipment (PPE) that put staff and residents at risk and killed young and old and there were countless awful stories of people being forbidden by Covid rules to say goodbye to their loved ones.
I very much doubt if many people in residential care, given a choice, would have opted for an extra year of life if they knew they would be looked after exclusively by people dressed like aliens and forbidden to touch those who meant most to them whom draconian rules meant they could see only through a closed window.
This inevitably caused me to think about my own family.
Advertisement
Hide AdAdvertisement
Hide AdShortly after I was born my paternal grandparents required looking after so my parents bought a bigger house.
When Grandfather Edwards died, my father told his bullying and frequently drunk mother that she would be tolerated only if she foreswore alcohol, which, to do her credit, she did.
Since drunk or sober she could start a fight in a morgue, meals were brought to her room, where my mother frequently had to put up with rude comments about her peasant ancestry.
Grandmother lasted until 85 keeping herself busy with political meetings.
Advertisement
Hide AdAdvertisement
Hide Ad