Just recently we have had quite a few new people to look after. Most of them I only see once in a blue moon because I have my own regular ladies and gents to look after.
Yesterday my senior care worker rang up to ask if I could take on a few extra calls as someone had gone off sick. As she rattled off the names I visualised my route until the last one which was a lady called Janine.
'Janine?' I asked as I couldn't place the name
'Yes, you know the lady; never normally wants much so we sit and chat for ten minutes'
'Oh yes I know her' I replied cursing under my breath, as the lady lives on the other side of town to the others.
Having finished the first two calls, I made the fifteen minute journey across town muttering under my breath that there must have been another carer who was nearer to do the visit.
I enter the house to find the lady in her kitchen
'Hello I haven't seen you for a while' she said
'Hello Janine, How are you today/' I replied,
'Not too bad, I am a bit cold though.'
'Is the heating on'
'Oh expect my husband forgot this morning as he was in a hurry'
'Oh okay, I'll put it on then shall I' whilst moving across to the thermostat. 'Have you had breakfast'
'No, not yet'
I dutifully make her breakfast with warm milk and check she has taken her meds before looking for the record of care book. It was not in it's usual place. so I asked Janine where it was.
'I am not sure, it might be in the book case'
'Nope that's the people who do your housework'
'I don't know then
I spent about five minutes looking for the book and eventually gave up, deciding to leave a note for her husband on a scrap piece of paper. On the kitchen table was a note pad and as I picked it up I noticed someone had written 'Care cancelled from the 12th'
Today was the 17th.
'Your name is Janine isn't it'
'No Jean'
'Sorry, I am not supposed to be here'
'Oh well never mind dear, It was nice to see you'
A quick call to my senior and I established that Janine lived five minutes away from where I was about half an hour previously.
Thursday 19 March 2015
Friday 13 March 2015
Not such a clever clogs
This week I was asked to take a lady out shadowing with me to learn the ropes. She was a lovely lady, really friendly and attentive to what was saying, by the end of the evening I was convinced she would make a great carer.
At our last call with Brenda, a severely deaf lady who has dementia, I was demonstrating how to put a certain type of pad on.
'First of all' I explained, 'this it is not the ideal kind to put on this particular service user, because it is really designed to be put on when someone is laying down in bed and we dress this lady standing up. Normally we would use the straight forward pull up kind, but because of this lady's incontinence problem these ones absorb better. So as you can see it is designed to be wrapped round the waist and then fed between her legs to be attached by Velcro at the front. As you can imagine this is a nightmare to do on your own, so I guess at the ladies waist and then make it up so it is like a straight forward pull up pair. I have been looking after this lady for a while now so I have a pretty good idea of her size' I add smugly
Brenda, our elderly lady concerned wears a Onesie (with a hood) to go to bed which is another problem altogether. I wheel her into the bedroom and help her undress. When it comes to her trousers I get her stand up using a rota stand and shout '123 UP' I then pull down her trousers and the wet pad. Brenda then sits down and I slip the new pad on up to her knees along with the trouser part of the Onsie. '123UP' and she stands again while I pull everything up and slip her arms into the top half.
'As you can see' I proudly say whilst pulling up the perfectly fitting pad 'I am quite good at guessing the size.
My pupil is suitably impressed
She sits down again and I do the buttons up on the Onesie.
'Now we can move Brenda near the bed and use the rota stand to get her from the chair into bed' I demonstrate 'Once we have got Brenda sitting on the side of the bed she can lean back and we can lift her legs up onto the bed.
As I bent down to do this I notice with horror an obstacle on the bed. It was the clean pad I had made up earlier which meant that in my smugness to show off I had put the soiled pad back on.
Now you try explaining to a deaf lady with dementia who is in the process of snuggling down, that she has got to get undressed again.
On the positive side; To save taking the Onsie completely off and as there was two of us, I did not take the pad off down past her ankles but demonstrated the conventional way to take that particular pad off and on. Extra training
At our last call with Brenda, a severely deaf lady who has dementia, I was demonstrating how to put a certain type of pad on.
'First of all' I explained, 'this it is not the ideal kind to put on this particular service user, because it is really designed to be put on when someone is laying down in bed and we dress this lady standing up. Normally we would use the straight forward pull up kind, but because of this lady's incontinence problem these ones absorb better. So as you can see it is designed to be wrapped round the waist and then fed between her legs to be attached by Velcro at the front. As you can imagine this is a nightmare to do on your own, so I guess at the ladies waist and then make it up so it is like a straight forward pull up pair. I have been looking after this lady for a while now so I have a pretty good idea of her size' I add smugly
Brenda, our elderly lady concerned wears a Onesie (with a hood) to go to bed which is another problem altogether. I wheel her into the bedroom and help her undress. When it comes to her trousers I get her stand up using a rota stand and shout '123 UP' I then pull down her trousers and the wet pad. Brenda then sits down and I slip the new pad on up to her knees along with the trouser part of the Onsie. '123UP' and she stands again while I pull everything up and slip her arms into the top half.
'As you can see' I proudly say whilst pulling up the perfectly fitting pad 'I am quite good at guessing the size.
My pupil is suitably impressed
She sits down again and I do the buttons up on the Onesie.
'Now we can move Brenda near the bed and use the rota stand to get her from the chair into bed' I demonstrate 'Once we have got Brenda sitting on the side of the bed she can lean back and we can lift her legs up onto the bed.
As I bent down to do this I notice with horror an obstacle on the bed. It was the clean pad I had made up earlier which meant that in my smugness to show off I had put the soiled pad back on.
Now you try explaining to a deaf lady with dementia who is in the process of snuggling down, that she has got to get undressed again.
On the positive side; To save taking the Onsie completely off and as there was two of us, I did not take the pad off down past her ankles but demonstrated the conventional way to take that particular pad off and on. Extra training
Thursday 12 March 2015
So it's not all tea and cakes then
I had a gentleman who is hoping to became a care worker at our company join me today to see what the job involved
The Conversation started with.....
'Our first call is a lady who.....'
'We visit ladies?' came the stunned interruption
'Oh yes, we visit a wide range of people from the young to the old to special needs, all of which include Male and females
'I imagined that as I was a male I would only be visiting men'
Not a good start. Ok so we get over that barrier and we go in to another lady and he is so shocked by her condition that he can barely look at her and busies himself in the kitchen to keep out of the way
Later that day I had to call an ambulance out to an elderly lady that has had a fall. She was Ok but needed to go to hospital for a check up. Again he disappears into the kitchen to make a cup of tea but stays there until the ambulance arrives
He seemed very sheepish when I dropped him off.
Not quite the cup of tea and cakes scenario that he imagined I think.
Needless to say he never came back
The Conversation started with.....
'Our first call is a lady who.....'
'We visit ladies?' came the stunned interruption
'Oh yes, we visit a wide range of people from the young to the old to special needs, all of which include Male and females
'I imagined that as I was a male I would only be visiting men'
Not a good start. Ok so we get over that barrier and we go in to another lady and he is so shocked by her condition that he can barely look at her and busies himself in the kitchen to keep out of the way
Later that day I had to call an ambulance out to an elderly lady that has had a fall. She was Ok but needed to go to hospital for a check up. Again he disappears into the kitchen to make a cup of tea but stays there until the ambulance arrives
He seemed very sheepish when I dropped him off.
Not quite the cup of tea and cakes scenario that he imagined I think.
Needless to say he never came back
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