School involvement

I wrote to our two local secondary schools making a suggestion.

Could some of choir, or orchestra, visit Coombe Dingle Nursing Home in Caterham to sing, or play, to the residents for an hour or so.

Could some of the drama students perhaps GCSE course work students - visit to enact their plays they have written.

Could some perhaps visit taking books, some also which mainly consist of picture, or photographs, so they could read to the service users who are now no longer able to read for themselves.

Maybe they could help with some activities - perhaps cutting out pictures from magazines, and making them into scrap books for later visits when the pictures they put in could be highlighted, or talked about again.

Our own daughters, now in their thirties, find it too upsetting to viist father, and so I highlighted to the Head teachers that, if the students could be encouraged to make such visits, on a regular basis, it may well help them to cope in later life, if sadly they ever are suddenly faced wtih a similar situation to have a reliative su,fer the dreaded Alzheimers or whatever other illness, causing them to have to enter full time "CARE" in a nursing home.

Let's face it, all other Medfical professionals, district nurses, physio, falls teams,. O T, etc. etc. are so willing, and able, to shut the door, and forget all those less fortuante than themselves. They are all right Jack" They forget they can freely - go out for a meal, go to theatre, visit friends, go for walk in the countryside, or drive in the country, feel wind blowing in their hair as they stroll along seafront or pier, feel heat of the sunshine, etc.etc.

Once committed to the incarceration of those institutions - however much the staff try to make their "quality of life" nearer the "normal" - their lives change for the worse, while they wait for, or until the "dreaded day" arrives. It is pitiful.

They are even denied the provision of wheelchairs, or equipment that has been identified as a "health need" because the nursing home is "expected" to provide. Even if fight is won, and person is privileged to be granted funding from Continuing Care Team, they too refuse to fund a necessary wheelchair for the client.

Can Nursing homes really be expected to provide one wheelchair siuitable for an obese large person, or another for tall "giant" slim person. or indeed a wheelchair bespoke for each individual. They too are strapped for cash, and, of course, they cannot. Meanwile person with the identified "need" has to suffer sitting with knees up towards chin, in an unsuitably sized wheelchair, sometimes without foot rests too, and one which, if they push hard enough on back of chair, they can tip front small wheels off floor - Risk then, they could fall flat on their back, wham, onto hard wooden floor, still in that wheelchair. My heart goes out to them all.

It is high time those professionals woke up to the real world for those less fortunate people.