A disabled pensioner is set to celebrate her 80th birthday alone after a council banned its carers from visiting her on their days off. Brenda Coker, 79, was left devastated by the decision to prevent staff she counts as her closest friends from popping in for a cup of tea.
Their visits - which have spanned the 15 years she had received home care - were deemed 'inappropriate' by Milton Keynes Council. Its officials claim guidelines forbid contact between carers and clients when they are off duty, and have dismissed her complaints.
The retired nurse now faces celebrating her 80th birthday alone as her brother is her only relative who lives 150 miles away in Cheshire and her carer friends are forbidden to attend.
Miss Coker, who walks with a frame after two hip replacements and has been diagnosed with a blood disorder, said she felt betrayed and abandoned by the council. She said: 'They've stopped my friends coming round for a cup of tea and a natter. I've watched some of my carers children growing up and have children of their own.
'When you live on your own and have no relatives its nice for someone to come in and talk to you and have a coffee. 'I do get lonely at times especially when I came out of hospital last year after eight weeks.
'If it hadn't been for the carers cheering me up I think I would have given up. 'I get lonely in the winter months and I don't want to sit looking at four blank walls all day long. 'I think it is absolutely appalling. Care doesn't stop when you shut the front door and say goodbye.
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To care too much?
To care too much?
“If you trust in yourself, and believe in your dreams, and follow your star. . . you'll still get beaten by people who spent their time working hard and learning things and weren't so lazy.”
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@meric@nwom@n
Re: To care too much?
I do as I wish in my spare time. It is none of my employer's business if I go and see a patient in their home on my own time. Should my employer tell me what to do my spare time I would certainly tell her where she could stick it.
Re: To care too much?
My thoughts exactly.
Micro management in the health care field is the bane of my life.
Managers seem to think that they can control every thing we do, inside and outside of work.
Micro management in the health care field is the bane of my life.
Managers seem to think that they can control every thing we do, inside and outside of work.
“If you trust in yourself, and believe in your dreams, and follow your star. . . you'll still get beaten by people who spent their time working hard and learning things and weren't so lazy.”
Re: To care too much?
Absent some evidence that the carers are exerting undue influence over this lady (or more particularly, her finances), I don't see how the employer can dictate that a friendship outside the limits of the paid care is off limits.
For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.
~ Carl Sagan
~ Carl Sagan