Hi Catherine and Laurence et al.
I was going to pass on this topic, as it is not in my area of
expertise, but I feel moved to reply with personal anecdote. It is my
belief that 'professionals' encourage and promote the concept of
'caregiver,' as independent of relationship, for their own reasons, and
we get caught in the ensuing verbal and semantic trap. (In case it
matters, I live in the US and my experiences are all US based).
> My first thoughts are that for paid "caregivers"
> the professional relationship is an important distinction. It is
> important regardless of the reciprocity of some of the features of
the
> relationship for example the companionship.
My mother is in her 80s and, as a result of Macular Degeneration (sp?),
is legally blind. My father is in his 70s and has been severely hard of
hearing for years. He has lately (year or two) experienced a decline in
mental acuity and comprehension due to a terminal bone condition, which
results in not enough blood oxygen getting to his brain. The level of
reciprocal caring between them has not changed (except to increase) in
their fifty years of marriage.
Last year, my father needed to go to a doctor's appointment in a nearby
city. The hospital would provide transport for eligable patients, and
my father was eligable. My mother, who was making the appointment for
the transport, informed them that she needed to go with him, as he
would otherwise get confused. They refused, saying they didn't pay for
wives to ride into the city, just patients. She got friends to drive
them in to see the doctor and tried to challenge the transport's
response, to no avail.
This year, I happened to be available at the time, and made the
appointment for transportation. I made it for my father and his
"Personal Care Attendent". No problem. I then advised them that his
"Personal Care Attendent" was my mother, his wife. Again, no problem. I
asked if it would have been a problem just to tell them my mother would
be going with him, and they replied, yes! They has rules against
non-patient individuals using their service, but PCA were acceptable.
Therefore, my mother needed an official title, which relates in no way
to the actuality of the relationship, before she could access necessary
services. For the 'professionals' the terminology needed to be there.
Call it caregiver or carer or PCA or whatever, the separation of job
from person and relationship is, for me, a distressing example of the
distancing of actual 'care' from the terms of 'caregiving'.
<CLIP>
> >Traditionally, these have been called "caregiving relationships". I
> am
> >finding myself quite aversive to the language of caregiving --
> somehow for
> >me it carries far too much baggage of one-way dependence, and does
> not
> >recognize the reciprocity of many of these relationships
<CLIP>
Agreed. "What can be done about such language centered baggage" is not,
however, an easy question. For now, my mom, now "elevated" to the staus
of PCA, is able to get dad to the hospital.
Bright Blessings
Cindy J. Bidwell Glaze
=====
And the day came, when the risk to remain tight in bud became more painful than the risk to bloom.
Anias Nin (1903-1977)
__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Get email at your own domain with Yahoo! Mail.
http://personal.mail.yahoo.com/
________________End of message______________________
Archives and tools for the Disability-Research Discussion List
are now located at:
www.jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/disability-research.html
You can JOIN or LEAVE the list from this web page.
|