Hello Everyone, my name is Hamilton and I’m new in here. I’m 37 and I work as a carer. looking forward to having more interactive conversations about care and sharing our experience for the good of the people we are caring for.
This is a group for UNPAID family carers.
Hi @humboy.
As BB says this site is designed for unpaid carers to give and receive peer support and to exchange our experiences and share the pressures and trials of being - often - 24/7 carers rather than for those in paid employment as carers.
I am sure you understand the extra pressure many of us are under - some holding down full-time jobs and returning home to spend the rest of the day and night in a role many of us did not ask for and would often prefer not to have to do but we do because we are supporting our loved ones.
Don’t feel I am being rude, but your experiences will be quite different to ours and the traumatic situations we often find ourselves facing. We do not have Managers who can back us up or other colleagues who can come to our aid. Most of us had no training for our role and in my case, no warning - one day working with my partner and the next I became a full-time carer with no choice, no preparation, no guidance or manual to which I could refer and suddenly having to fathom out what the heck Social Services and the NHS could and WOULD NOT do for my husband or me.
As a quick example he spent five weeks in hospital before discharge at the beginning of December. In those five weeks I spent almost 300 hours at his bedside providing reassurance (he was delirious for a week) and assisting with personal care, administering medication, feeding him and liaising with ALL the medics, including repeatedly briefing them on his medical history. None of the staff in the hospital worked that many hours in those five weeks, and then I had travelling and trying to feed and look after myself. This is a VERY different situation to a paid Care job.
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Have to echo the other posters. Whilst I admire paid Carers you get holiday and paid leave and time off. We do not! We are ‘on call’ 24/7 365 days a week. I am sure if you search Facebook or google there may well be support groups for paid carers. Good luck = it is a very important job that you do and it sounds as if you have a lot of empathy and compassion for your clients.
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