Sheltered Housing


John Kilbride locked his mother`s door securely and carried her little suitcase to the car where his mother and Irene were already waiting. Irene Kilbride drove them to the village care home and John was as silent as the other two on the short journey. When they got there the care home residents were settling down and John noticed with some disappointment that the room his mother had been allocated had been cleared out and the flowers and biscuits that he provided were gone. He hoped that supper time would not be too long in coming. Within minutes Irene told John that she had forgotten something and asked him if he had their mother`s key?  She wasted no time once she had the key in her hand and said she had to go immediately. Innocently John assumed that Irene must be in a hurry to pick up something belonging to their mother.


Meanwhile Mrs Kilbride was tired out and had little to say so that John decided to leave his mother shortly after their arrival.  He laid her little suitcase down which she never unpacked and walked home having promised her that he would call in to see her the following day. It was a good walk.  The New Town looked picturesque at this time of year and there was a cool breeze as he headed up the hill.


The next day was 3 May 2011 and it became important to John Kilbride that he remembered that date. When he approached his mother`s room there was his sister Irene talking to a young woman who introduced herself as Misha McTavish, the social worker. This was the one and only time he saw the social worker although he did talk to her on the telephone some days later. What was significant about this event was that John Kilbride had walked into this meeting merely by chance. It worried John that Irene was getting herself involved with the social worker behind his back. George was pulling strings on one side whilst Irene was pulling them on the other and nobody was talking to him directly about any of it. So he made a point of passing on his telephone number and address to Misha McTavish and engaging in the conversation.


His mother had certainly been at a disadvantage before he came on board because both Irene and Misha McTavish were putting pressure on her and insisting that she was no longer able to take care of herself. "You need to be looked after," insisted Ms McTavish and when Mrs Kilbride protested, saying she could fall anywhere even in a care home and her voice grew louder as she got upset about it, Irene told her mother not to shout at the social worker. This was pathetic to witness and showed such a lack of empathy.  Here was their mother fighting for her rights and her very existence. John Kilbride informed the social worker that his mother had been living independently and that is what she wanted.  Arrangements were being made to find her sheltered housing because all his mother needed was a little extra help.  She did most things herself. The conversation petered out, and no conclusion was reached about what was to happen to Mrs Kilbride. As far as John was concerned it had merely been an exploratory conversation and his mother had put her views across strongly enough and that was the end of it.


His mother was definitely looking more like herself after a feed and a good night`s rest.  But it was a shame that she had been tossed back and forth between residences, and now was being emotionally challenged, when she had little time to recover from her weekend ordeal. Neither Irene nor the social worker seemed able to see things from his mother`s point of view. The very idea of being locked away in a care home was terrifying to most elderly people. Misha McTavish was a very pretty young woman but must have been fresh out of college. What would she really know about being 89 years old and undermined by her own daughter?  This was the daughter who had been banned from her mother`s house who seemed now to be dismissing her mother because she was of no more use to her. Anybody who was unaware of the background could easily have read the situation another way.


Once the social worker left Irene did not dally and John spent some time with his mother letting her know that he was there if she needed him for anything. The walk back home was less idyllic and his thoughts were racing.  He was angry with Irene who had gone out of her way to present their mother as less capable than she actually was in front of the social worker.  Had she arranged that meeting?  Or had she bumped into Misha McTavish whilst visiting? Why did his mother feel that she had to defend herself against accusations that she might fall? It looked to John like Irene was making a mountain out of a molehill and had taken advantage of the black eye to spin a yarn.


John Kilbride never received telephone calls from his sister. So it was a surprise to John to receive a telephone call from Irene the following day and it was one of those `don`t bother coming down` phone calls, only this one made sense. It was true that his mother was exhausted after the weekend which turned out to be an emotional roller coaster.  So when Irene suggested that their mother was too tired for a visit and she would ring back at half past five to fill him in he decided to wait for her phone call. In fact, he was pleased that there seemed to be a bit of communication between them at last and thought that their accidental meeting with the social worker had something to do with it. Rather than being antagonistic towards her he thought that there was more to be gained by playing along with her. Hindsight is a great thing and John Kilbride was to discover that this was the first of a number of mistakes he made. But in order to have avoided these mistakes he would have had to have suspected everybody of unspeakably bad intentions towards his mother. At the time this was beyond his experience.


Calderglen Park
 
 
The point was he never did get that telephone call from Irene and his mother never did get that rest she needed. This was the day she was transferred to the ground floor dementia unit in another care home.


However on the morning of 5 May 2011, a day of drizzly rain and cloudy thoughts, all that John Kilbride knew as he set out to walk to the health centre was that Irene had failed to keep her promise and his hope that they could all work together had been dashed. He was picking up his own prescription and just happened to make enquiries about his mother`s medication when the receptionist said "Oh the care home takes care of that now. You don`t have to worry."  Nudging her slightly, because he was sensing something amiss, and it was her `now` that did it,  he learned that the care home she was talking about was not at the village but was in another district altogether. He thought she said something like `Calderburn` but was too flabbergasted to ask her to repeat the name or give the address of the home.


He was now furious with Irene and kicking himself.  She had abused his good feelings and played him like a sucker and her `don`t bother coming down` phone call had been to disarm him and put his mother out of his reach. Yet as he approached the bank to finish off his business in the town centre he even now had a twinge of conscience and thought it would be terrible to think such bad thoughts if Irene had simply forgotten to make that phone call. It was after making his transaction at the counter that he saw his brother George in the queue, fresh from his Easter weekend break, and no doubt there to top up his finances because he had depleted them on his holiday.


Immediately he approached George in the queue and questioned him about their mother.  "Do you know she`s in Calderburn?" he asked him.  Without hesitation George corrected him. "No, it`s Morrieburn," he said cheerfully.  "Right" said John. "I`m going there now; do you want a lift?"  George declined his offer and said he would be going to visit later. What John noticed was that he seemed quite satisfied with the arrangement. Well he would be satisfied thought John later, now that he had the mandate for his mother`s bank and no longer needed her physical presence to get access to her pension. John Kilbride`s mind grew darker with all the bad thoughts returning in even greater force. Determined to check out how his mother was doing he set off for the library, googled the address of Morrieburn care home and headed straight there. He realised that if George knew where their mother was, and yet he had only found out by having a conversation with a receptionist in the medical centre, then Irene could no longer be innocent and was deliberately withholding information from him whilst keeping George informed.




Morrieburn care home was adjacent to the car park of a newly built supermarket and was built alongside a busy main road.  Its dusty location, wide open spaces and traffic suggested that few of its inmates would ever take a stroll outside.  In contrast the village care home was located in pleasant surroundings where residents had easy access to pedestrian walkways. There, Mrs Kilbride had a room with a kitchen unit, kettle, sink, tables and chairs, two seater couches, reclining chair, double bed, shower, all ensuite.  It was a self-contained little unit and residents could make themselves a cup of tea and have a snack or entertain or be entertained by their visitors. As well as that the television was working.  Compared to Morrieburn it was the Ritz.


At Morrieburn John discovered with dismay that his mother had a room with a single bed, cabinet,  and shower and that was all.  The remote control for the television had a leaking battery; the cleaner left the window open after her rounds and the room was cold and draughty. The only thing that seemed to be working was the ticking clock on the wall.  What worried him in particular was that his mother had no reclining chair. At Morrieburn there was no opportunity for residents to do anything customary like make a cup of tea or share a social meal.  In Morrieburn residents had no opportunity to do anything at all.  Although there was a list of activities displayed on the wall, John Kilbride never once saw anybody engage in any organised activities.  When his mother got restless, and she did, because she had energy to do things and a mind that was still active and hungry for meaningful projects, she would end up packing and unpacking her little suitcase. Unfortunately this did not take her long because she only had a few clothes.  After all, the original intention had been respite care for three weeks and the few clothes she had in her possession reflected that. It was obvious that she had been taken straight from the village care home to the dementia unit.


So John Kilbride`s first impression of Morrieburn care home was not good and the more familiar he became with it the worse his view got. On his first visit he had to learn how to get past the secure door and was given the numbers. Obviously the numbers were withheld from the residents penned inside. He was instructed that visitors had to sign the book on the way in and on the way out for health and safety reasons. That was fair enough and he was able to monitor his mother`s visitors. What he learned was that George had lied to him about going to visit later on that day when he met him in the bank.  His sister Irene never visited at all and his two brothers George and Robert only visited once. When John Kilbride spoke to Robert`s partner about it he was disgusted to hear her say that they would not be visiting again because his mother had been so bad tempered. What a heartless, pitiless woman she was and he wondered if she would treat her own mother that way. Robert claimed that he had visited his mother more than once but John was able to point out how he knew that this was a lie. John Kilbride was coming to appreciate what a bunch of liars his family were. For once it did not matter how they colluded with each other, he had the evidence.


There were a mass of rules and regulations from the care home staff that did not inspire John Kikbride with confidence in the system.  One of them was to be told that visitors were not allowed on the premises during mealtimes.  This was about the residents` dignity he was informed.  He had shared soup and snacks with his Mum in the village care home and there never had been anything undignified about it and this language he was hearing was depressing. After all his mother had never asked to be placed in this situation and cut off in this way. He had a strange feeling that visitors were not really welcome and apart from issuing the rules staff usually kept themselves to themselves.  There was little meaningful interaction between residents and staff either.  The one time he did witness something going on, a care woker encouraged an old man to get up out of his chair, danced him around and placed him on a seat in order to weigh him.  If it had not been for the necessity of putting the old man on the weighing machine John Kilbride had no doubt that there would have been no dancing. If anything was undignified it was treating the old man like a mug.


Regarding his mother John Kilbride noticed that her name was misspelled on her room door and staff used a shortened version of her first name when referring to her that was never used by her family. There was no dignity for any resident in such carelessness. His mother was sitting amongst strangers, her eyesight was failing and getting her name wrong would only add to her confusion. He did not like the story he was once told about his own mother either.  A care worker told him that his mother had been saying that she needed her coat because she wanted to go out and look for a part time job. Knowing his mother had worked full time all her working life, John Kilbride knew that what he was presented with was just not like his mother.  He wondered why he was told this little story.  Was it to suggest to him that she was living in her own little world?  Was he now expected to collude with the care workers even though he knew this to be untrue? Did familes dump their parents in care homes and look for this kind of confirmation?  Were they being obliging?  He did not know the answers to these questions but he had his suspicions.


On that first visit he found his mother dozing in her chair like the other residents and still dazed on waking she soon showed that she was pleased once she had got herself together and recognised who he was. He was surprised that she never once explained what had happened regarding her transfer. He had been anxious that she would scold him for not turning up as he had promised but she said nothing. He wondered who had brought his mother to Morrieburn and hoped it was not Irene pretending she was taking her home from the village care home. That would have been the biggest betrayal of his mother`s life. He could not discount that theory because Irene had been devious with him and connived to obtain his mother`s key. Perhaps his mother had been sedated. But here she was and she said immediately: "Get me out of here." John Kilbride did not question her about the transfer because he had no wish to upset her more than she already was. At the moment his mother was locked out of her own home and until he had spoken with the social worker about what was going on, he felt unsure how to act. The trouble was the social worker was hard to contact.


"I`m going to see the social worker Mum. I think she said something about an assessment. That`ll be for the sheltered housing. So just hang in there." His mother insisted that she had been dumped but John reassured her that things would get sorted out soon. It was clear that Mrs Kilbride wanted to hear him say these things and she calmed down eventually. John said that the weather forcecast predicted a good day tomorrow and he would take her out for a run to cheer her up and again asked her to just `hang in there`until it got sorted.


He had arrived in time for afternoon tea which was served out of a great teapot. "Put some cold water in it," he heard his mother say. He noticed that the teacups were tiny and each resident was only served one cupful of tea. His mother was thirsty and looking for the trolley and her purse to buy more tea which never came. She must have thought it was like the hospital but there was no shop and residents depended on their visitors for extras. The cakes that were served along with the insipid tea were the most disgusting he had ever eaten. It was like they had come from a children`s baking class and had been frozen and thawed out so that their consistency was claggy and heavy. His mother particularly appreciated the toffees he brought because they generated moisture in her mouth and lasted her a while. He wondered what the meals were like and if there was another reason apart from the residents` dignity why visitors were not allowed.


The first time he took his mother out for a run they had to go searching for her coat which had been hidden away. "Does George know?" he was asked.  "What`s it got to do with George?" he replied. "Oh I think you should discuss this with George," the care worker told him. John did not like hearing that at all. Was this now to be another rule, and why?  The care workers seemed to be acting as if they had access to information but without ever explaining to him what that was and what his mother was doing in this care home. Regardless, and reflecting back on these few weeks he spent with his mother he was pleased that he had been able to take her out of the care home which she always enjoyed.  He never had to go far but she would tell him that she could read the road signs and loved to feel the breeze on her face.  They went to Calderglen Park, and Roukenglen Park amongst other places and his mother would get a huge pot of tea and a gateau in the cafe and sit amongst the other elderly folk and they would chat. On some occasions Mrs Kilbride was so keen to get out and so fearful that they would be stopped from doing so, that she insisted they never mind getting her coat. Fortunately it was summer and there were some good sunny days.


Roukenglen Park
 
 
One of the sad facts about his mother`s condition was that her eyesight was deteriorating due to cataracts and she was no longer able to enjoy reading novels.  She had been a great reader all her days but she did say to him that in order to pass her time in the care home she would often go through the books she had read in her mind.  John Kilbride was grateful that she had the inner resources to find some way of passing her time because life in the care home was grim: it was not really life at all. It was certainly not a life which suited his mother who was used to, and enjoyed, her own company.  She was forced to sit all day in the communal sitting room with the noise of the television constantly droning on in the background. To switch it off, or change the channel, meant you first had to find the remote control as well as getting the agreement of the other residents, impossible for most of them to negotiate.
 
 
He observed that his mother`s cardigan was getting very stained and sometimes he definitely noticed that she was wearing other people`s clothes.  "You need to bring in more of her clothes," said the care worker and he agreed and wondered what his sister was doing with his mother`s key because she certainly was not bringing in what his mother needed.  Without the key he could not go and get more of his mother`s clothes either. In the end, despite being unsure about sizes, he did get his mother a few items of clothing and was pleased that he had guessed right and they fitted.
 
 
On another occasion the care worker said: "I think you`ll need to talk to George."  They were never slow in coming forward to advise him he noticed.  John Kilbride was puzzled.  "He`s a bit upset," she explained. "His mother chased him away with her walking stick."  Mrs Kilbride had been using a walking stick ever since she had the slip in her bathroom, more to give her confidence than anything else, but she did seem a bit wild with it John had to agree. And yes that definitely sounded like his mother unlike the `part time job` story.  What he knew was that his mother felt dumped and was furious with George and Irene.  She had told him that George could go to Hell, and as far as Irene was concerned she would get her back. He definitely would not be following this piece of advice and knew more than the care worker about his own mother and her family. For one thing he knew how embarrassed George would be that he had been informed about this. John Kilbride actually took pity on him at the time. It did explain why George only visited his mother once at Morrieburn.
 
 
At last John Kilbride was pleased when he received the literature about sheltered housing with an accompanying note from Misha McTavish. There were two sheltered housing units available in the local area which Misha McTavish encircled on the leaflet.  Immediately he went to one of the addresses and was shown round the establishment and was very impressed.  His mother had looked so oppressed and downtrodden the last time he saw her that he was impatient to be on his way and looking forward to telling her all about the location and facilities. Getting back home to prepare himself there came that telephone call from Misha McTavish which halted him in his tracks and confused him even more.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 

1 comment:



  1. We do not have enough high-quality housing for older people

    With our growing older population, we need to create accessible homes and supportive communities
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    Les Billingham

    Guardian Professional, Thursday 26 September 2013 08.29 BST

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    We need communities that are resilient, innovative and supportive. Photograph: Dan Atkin/

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