A decade ago I ended up looking after sick relatives at home. Not exactly unpaid, but the paltry UK benefit payment to the carer was a mere £40 per week - deducted from the disability benefit of those you're looking after.
You could call that a comprehensive approach. Comprehensively degrading and cheap. And there were Kafka-esque ordeals in accessing agencies and services which were all but concealed from mortal view.
On the positive side, the teams of 'home helps' attending at various junctures during the day were an absolute godsend. Almost exclusively women, overworked and low-paid. But so good that I've since wondered whether improved wages, staffing and caseloads would be enough to transform this shoestring local service into a universally-applicable best practice.
That however would mean adequate funding of services. And we all know that people exist only to serve financial markets. It would be just crazy if markets existed to serve humanity.
As one of those apparently rare male carers, I can testify to the subsequent loss of opportunities. The state has an awful long way to go before it even begins to address such inadequacies. Besides, corporate welfare comes first...
Again, the same experience of some truly excellent carers who are so overworked and screwed out of being paid properly (private and public sector) through every possible loophole that can be used. The contracting out of services to the private sector has resulted in a real drop in the standards of the service provision through the way it is run and resultingly the undue pressure on the carers themselves. But carers do such an important job.
Then there are other carers who feel hugely resentful of doing work they aren't being paid properly for, or they are far too rushed and have to run off to the next job without doing all that needs to be done. Then the standards suffer and so does my relative. Ad astra per aspera
