Home Care Provider pleads for more Caregivers

by Jada Chambers

Vasilca Carter, a carer in the Home Help for the Elderly Programme within the Ministry of National Mobilisation will like to see more people showing up to help care for their elderly parents.

Carter has been a team member within the social support programme in the ministry assisting with the mobilisation of home helpers for almost six years.

She told SEARCHLIGHT that she went through the training so she can be professionally equipped to take care of her own 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 been caring for clients, among them, people who suffer from different forms of dementia, some of whom have since died.

She is currently providing care to two families, one of whom is the Abdula Muhammad, with whom she has been working for the past six months.

Muhammad, a former van operator,is blind and living with Alzheimer’s.

Carter has been assisting with the care of the near 73-year-old Muhammad who is not only blind, but is also a diabetic.

His wife, Iris Woodley-Muhammad, is the main care taker, but suffers with a disk problem that makes the situation doubly challenging.

She explained that she noticed her husband’s mental health beginning to deteriorate sometime last year. As a result, she would like to see an increase in visits from the home helper from twice weekly to at least four times a week.

Carter feels that if more persons make the sacrifice to take care of their elderly parents, she and others may be able to offer more regular visits to clients like the Muhammads.

She told SEARCHLIGHT that the Muhammads really became her family, strengthened by her observation of the way Woodley- Muhammad was 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,” she stressed.

” So all this morning, he calling I-I? (his wife), 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…”, she related giving an example of the changes that can be expected from people with Alzheimer’s dementia.

Hypothetically, Carter reasoned that had Muhammad been placed in a care home “and he calling for his I-I,(his wife), and there’s no I-I, he’s going to become very agitated”.

Carter commended Woodley-Muhammad for the care that she is providing to her husband, but feels in the process she is neglecting herself.

“…I would always say to miss Abdula, ‘you need to eat when Mr Abdula eating. And if it even mean taking he cup if he ain’t drinking it…she’ll take the cup and she will feed him’.”

While Woodley-Muhammad is her husband’s principal carer, she said other members of her family chip in to help, when needed.

Carter said there are insufficient workers in the Home Help for the Elderly team so her services are stretched, though she is always willing to work with her clients.

She works on Tuesdays and Thursdays with the Muhammad family in Largo Heights; Mondays and Fridays, she works in Campden Park; and on Wednesdays, she works in ‘Virgin Lowmans’.

The Home Help pool comprises just over 100 carers, and while Carter would like the pool to be increased, she insists that training is paramount so that carers can also deal adequately with situations that may arise while on the job.

“I’m saying trained because sometimes you get a client and…you cannot just send a worker to deal with it, because then you’re not trained to deal with Alzheimer’s dementia…you’re not trained to deal with a bed sore…you’re not trained to deal with a client who’s in bed for you to turn them…” she noted, and reiterated that people need to be prepared to take care of their elderly members.

“If you have your mommy and you don’t want to take care of your mommy, then that leaves me who wants to take care of the elderly with your responsibility…because you don’t want to do your part at home.”

Supervisor, Cindy Farrell, told SEARCHLIGHT that Vincentians who need a home care provider can request a form from the Ministry of National Mobilisation and indicate the client’s name, age, health status, address and contact numbers for family members.

She said that the supervisors will receive that information, then conduct an assessment, and based on the assessment, a home care provider will be assigned to the client’s address.

“…We are really short of staff…sometimes they apply, and when they come in and they see the nature of the work, they don’t want to… (stay)”

Farrell said she does not believe that anyone should be left behind where care is concerned. She added that while the ministry is a big one, they do their best to take care of everyone.

[Updated September 29, 2025 @5:00pm]