Home Care Provider pleads for more Caregivers

by Jada Chambers

When people neglect their parents, or refuse to work for the elderly, vulnerable Vincentians, like 73- year- old Abdul Hadi Muhammad, may not get the quality of care that is needed.

Muhammad, a former van operator,is fully blind and living with Alzheimer’s, and a worker from the Ministry of National Mobilisation, in which the Home Care Programme is housed, is pleading with Vincentians to serve the country’s ageing population, especially those who are dealing with medical ailments.

Valciltia Carter has been a team member within the social support programme in the Ministry of National Mobilisation assisting with the mobilisation of home helpers for almost six years. She told SEARCHLIGHT that she underwent training so she can be professionally equipped to take care of her ageing mother.

“Everybody would want to take care of their elderly, but I wanted to make sure that what I was doing, I was doing it correctly….”

Since then, Carter has taken care of clients who suffer from different forms of Dementia, some of whom have since died. She is currently taking care of two families, one of whom is the Muhammads, with whom she has been working for the past six months.

Carter has been assisting with the care of the 73- year- old Muhammad who is not only blind, but is a diabetic, whose mental-well being began to deteriorate after being diagnosed with Alzheimer’s last year.

Carter told SEARCHLIGHT that the Muhammads really became her family, and said that she fell in love with Muhammad’s wife, Iris Woodley- Muhammad, for being very patient with her husband.

“And, when you’re dealing with dementia, Alzheimer’s, you need a lot of that. And when I came and I heard that she wanted him to go to a home, I knew that she got frustrated because all of it was just on her….”

Carter said that if Muhammad were admitted to a public home, the environment would be unfamiliar as everyone would be strange to him.

“Familiarity is the best thing. So all this morning, he calling I-I? and I answering, ‘you want Miss Iris’? ‘No, I didn’t call her’, and she stayed outside hearing him calling her, and he’s telling me no, and I right inside with him….” Hypothetically, she reasoned, “now, he gone to the poor home, as we call it- Lewis Punett Home- and he calling for his I-I, and there’s no I-I, he’s going to become very agitated”.

However, Carter told SEARCHLIGHT that Iris is  neglecting herself to take care of her husband.

Click here to subscribe to read the full article in the E-paper!