I am already behind. Who knew a blog would entail such pressure. My intention was to write after each shift, but given that I have already worked four and have only just begun to write, I have a lot of catching up to do. Nevermind. Chronology is not necessarily the most important factor here anyway, but it makes sense to begin at the beginning for purposes of clarity, then if things get a bit mixed up later on it doesn’t matter too much.
As explained, the purpose of this blog is to act as a record of my experience working as a care assistant in nursing homes for the elderly. I do this work through an agency – that is, I am employed by a company that specialises in providing healthcare staff to hospitals, nursing homes, private individuals, etc. It wasn’t the most challenging job to get. The initial process entailed the completion of an application form, followed by a very informal interview at the agency’s office. The interview consisted primarily of a glance through my application form, questions about my experience (minimal, in a voluntary capacity, in a different country and involving activity coordination rather than physical care) and work preferences (whether I wanted to work with the elderly, or with young people with learning disabilites, in private homes or a group residential setting). I was briefly asked why I had chosen to work in care, but this was a cursory enquiry – I certainly didn’t get the impression that there was a right or wrong answer to this question, and it seems that someone would have to make a very poor first impression to be turned down for care work. I may be wrong – perhaps my motivation was obviously genuine and didn’t require very much interrogation. Perhaps those with more suspect or apathetic motives are questioned more closely, but I doubt it.
Recruitment is a business – even if within the apparently noble realm of healthcare; the more employees an agency has on the books, the more it can supply and the more it earns. It doesn’t pay to scrutinise applicants too closely.
Which is not to say that individuals with an obvious propensity to abuse the vulnerable are welcomed – each employee has to undergo a (self-funded) Criminal Records Bureau check, and references are consulted. And I knowingly subject myself to inevitable criticism for being idealistic, but I don’t think it’s unthinkable that an individual applying to work with the elderly should undergo a bit of psychological probing beyond a robotic, “So, why do you want to work in care?”. Attitudes are plain in people’s responses – a few questions regarding personal opinions about quality of life and care in old age, a couple of hypothetical scenarios to be responded to – it wouldn’t take long, but it might help weed out at the outset those who haven’t given the job much thought at all beyond the pay packet (which is hardly a huge attraction in itself), and particularly those who are at the root of so much incompetent elderly care and who earn an especially acute strain of my ire - the ones who don’t like old people.
Snaf said,
November 21, 2007 at 11:00 am
I recall being told of a student nurse who was alarmed to realise how many of her fellow nursing trainees didn’t like sick people! As she said, who did they think they’d be working with?
I think anyone who has been sick has spotted that tendency in fit people to despise weakness. It can be quite frightening to confront – so much so that around people I think are likely to exhibit it, I would lie rather than mention having been sick in the past! I’ve theorised to myself that it might be a defensive mechanism, a way for them to excuse their lack of compassion – ‘I don’t have to feel sorry for them, they don’t deserve it’. A person can ‘not deserve it’ by not having a ‘real’ illness, or being perceived to exaggerate their suffering.
I’ve never forgotten a nurse who ‘cared’ for my Nanna when she was once in hospital. Although my Nanna had told her treating physician that a certain drug made her extremely nauseated, and that she did better on an alternative, they insisted on giving her drug A anyway, to see for themselves *scowls*. As she had predicted, it made her acutely ill – so much so, she vomited, and in the process of course lost another pill it was very important she take for her heart condition. This nurse referred to my Nanna as being ‘a good girl’ (!) when she took her pills, and treated her vomiting episode not with pity but annoyance – as though Nanna had thrown up just to inconvenience her! What Nanna in fact did was fish the important tablet out of her vomit and re-swallow it. Not to mention be completely stoic in the face of that nurse’s rudeness.
I can’t help thinking that the isolation of staff and patients has something to do with the development of their inhumane behaviour. I’d like to think (and I may be wrong in some instances) that staff wouldn’t behave rudely if their partner, children or friends were watching them as they worked. That external context that keeps all of us in line most of the time, and enforces social standards of politeness and respect, seems to be attenuated behind the closed doors and rushed/stresed atmosphere of hospitals and care homes.