Who Cares?

While walking through my local town centre the other week I passed a group of people who all obviously had some form of learning disability in one way or another. All were excited and shouting to each other. At the front of the group was a large, bossy woman with a pudding-basin haircut and jam-jar bottom spectacles. Her dress looked like something from the nineteen thirties. I couldn't help but think why do people who support people with learning difficulties dress them in this way? It may be their choice, but it does seem to be a uniform of disability! But can you imagine my surprise when later I saw the large bossy one getting everyone else into a minibus then driving it away? I later found out that this lady worked at a project which helps people with learning disabilities and she allegedly doesn't have any learning disabilities herself.

Now, this lady might be a fantastic carer. I don't know, but it does make me think about the care industry as a whole. It seems to be the cheapest provider that gets the contract! I know that there are lots of checks put into place, and it's my sister's job to make sure they are in place at our local authority. But having the correct pieces of paper ticked doesn't make good care. People are placing their loved ones into the hands of people whose only aim is to make as much money as possible from them, and this usually means cutting corners.

My wife worked in a nursing home where, on the whole, most of the people who worked there cared. But they started to employ more and more young people who had no qualifications or interest in the job. Remember, this was a nursing home, where lots of the clients were terminally ill. It got to the stage that if all the younger members of the team were to work on a Sunday morning, no one would turn up for their shift as they would all go out the night before, get drunk, then phone in sick the next morning!

Many years ago, I worked with young people with learning disabilities. It did seem to me that, when I attended courses, there always seemed to be what I called 'Bingo women'! I know that this make me sound like an incredible snob, but they would turn up shouting the most inappropriate things. They were boorish and would ask the most inane questions, making these tedious courses last twice as long as they needed to be!

One of my friends told me of a conference that she had attended at a large old stately hall in South Yorkshire. She, like me loathed these things, but we had to attend them from time to time. She said that it was quite interesting, but there were the usual 'bingo women' there dominating events, much to the anger of the women delivering the workshop. The subject of sexuality and sex in an institutional setting arose. The bingo women started making jeering noises and laughing, when the woman delivering the workshop spoke about sex between minors and what to do if you found that a minor was being abused. Then one of the bingo women shouted out, "I had sex with a minor once, 'e were a right randy git!” The room fell silent. The woman in charge asked nervously, "I'm sorry what did you just say?”

“I 'ad sex wi a minor, 'e worked at Caphouse colliery.”

It was then that her friends burst out laughing, “That's a miner, you daft cow!” one of them shouted to her.

“I know, that's what I said. 'E owes me money as well,” she replied in her broad Yorkshire accent.

“She's” the other woman said, pointing to the woman in charge, “She's talking about 'aving it off wi kiddies.”

The first woman looked shocked and replied, “I wouldn't 'ave sex wi' a kiddie! What do you think I am, a hermaphrodite or summat?” Again people looked on, puzzled, when one of the other people on the course, who was also suffering these idiots said, “I think you mean a paedophile?”

“What?”

“An adult person who has sex with children, is called a paedophile.”

“What's an hermaphrodite then?” asked the brain donor.

My friend said that she had started laughing by now as it was one of the best comedy sketches she had seen in years. Another woman gave a deep sigh and said, “Hermaphrodites are inter-sex people that have both male and female reproductive organs.”

The bingo woman fell silent for a few seconds then turned to the room and with a look of confusion replied, “I thought they were called gays?”

The woman taking the course promptly asked this halfwit her name and where she worked.

Would you want her left alone with your vulnerable loved one?

I know that there are a lot of hard working and caring people who work long hours for little money to look after people in a care environment. But because of the nature of the shifts and because it's low paid, it also attracts people who don't care, which is why there are so many cases of abuse being reported. The whole industry needs to clean up its act and pay a decent wage to people who are properly trained and not just given a Mickey Mouse course to go on. We are talking about people's lives here.

So if you work in the care sector and you are offended about my comments about 'bingo women' and men, then it's probably because you are one, and others will be nodding their heads in agreement!