Letter: There’s a good reason why I cannot work full-time
Monday 4th October 2010, 7:01AM BST.
Letter: I am a full time carer for my mother. I am sick and tired of listening to the rubbish on this letters page saying people who are not in employment are worthless.
I do a worthwhile job for nothing, get harassed 24/7 by Jobcentre plus, who refuse to understand my situation.
I look after my disabled mother, who has numerous medical conditions eg, can’t walk, heart condition etc
One lady at the job centre told me to get a job which started at 4.30am and finished at 9am, then I would be still able to look after my mom. What planet are the people with these views living on? When am I meant to look after my own family? Also time to eat and sleep would be nice!
Edwina Boardman
Dawley
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So you are a registered carer receiveing carers allowance? Are you claiming benfits for your mother? have you looked at having professional care help? has she lloked at going into a council run home?
In other words you could work, you just don’t know or cannot be asked to…
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Totally Amazing set of questions….
You don’t happen to work at the Job Centre do you??????
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Spot the latest Shropshire Star internet troll. ‘Papa’ is not only ignorant but partially iliterate too, if their spelling is anything to go by.
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And speaking of people who can’t spell, I should perhaps correct my own mistake and spell ‘illiterate’ properly (with two ‘L’s)…. :-)
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ever heard of dyslexia???????? Very shallow indeed.
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We do not know the full facts so we all are unable to give an opinion based on her situation because of that. However with regards professional care, council run care,etc etc I would have thought this lady is saving the Tax payer a fortune ? and I think papa will find in the so called big society we will all be expected to do this in the future.Glad I am not in this situation and glad I am not as ignorant as poor old papa bless him.
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Very true Andrew.
Incidentally, I read in the papers today that Carers Allowance costs the state £1.6 million a year. A drop in the ocean to what other benefits cost. And carers save the government – and thus taxpayers – BILLIONS.
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cannot be asked to?
Brilliant! :)
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For those who have never been in the “carer” situation perhaps you might understand the following.
Receiving any help or financial aid is a nightmare of beaurocracy, avoidance and penny pinching to the nth degree.
The moral obligation to ones own parent is huge and you cannot simply walk out and leave them because though it would take months to come to a resolution for a simple request on your part it would take only minutes for the self same jobsworths to criticise you for neglecting your “responsibilities”
Homes for the elderly infirm cost a fortune and believe me that a mans savings and future for his wife are completely gone within the shortest possible time of his entering “Care”.
Poor quality though that “care” maybe it is beyond beleif what it costs. Poorly furnished, drably decorated, food that the once proud citizen would have fed to dogs, and carers who frankly could not care less. I am not talkig about those who are criminally cruel and dishonest. They are a further entity in their own right.
So we have a woman who is doing what a decent person does and needs the help of society to do it. This is what the benefit system is for. To help people in times of genuine difficulty. Not to support shameless scroungers and shirkers through years and years of dependancy.
Worse still is the immigration of many more who will reap the benefits whilst those who are in genuine need will be cut back, criticised and bullied because they are soft targets of society.
To paraphrase George Orwell “All men are equal but some are more equal that others”
The benefits system shows quite clearly that the rougher, less decent, more blatant one is as a low life the more benefits one gets easily and the less pressure the jobsworths try to exert upon them to get a job and to fend for themselves.
Time for something to change.
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I believe it has been estimated that unpaid carers save the Government millions of pounds a year because they provide care at a fraction of the cost to that which is provided by care homes, council home helps and other related health and social services. It sounds to me like the original letter writer isn’t aware of the specific benefit for carers (which is about £53 a week from a quick glance at the YouGov site…) and that she has been poorly advised by the staff at her Job Centre too. This would allow her to stay and care for her mother, although not provide the same financial help that would be available if she was ‘available for work’.
While it isn’t a great deal of money, I would imagine that it would be folly indeed for the Government to change this entitlement in the forthcoming welfare changes. I would suspect even as part of the Universal Credit system that is planned, carers will still be able to care for relatives etc and receive financial assistance while not having to be available for work, which is plainly impossible for many people. The Government has promised that vulnerable people have nothing to fear from the Coalition, and that they will continue to look out for such people – so we’ll how much of that hyperbole is true, won’t we?!
I honestly don’t think that most working people mind their taxes going towards people in *genuine* need of assistance, as Carers are. I know that I don’t.
And the other thing is, none of us know what is around the corner, or if we will one day need to care for a loved one – or have someone care for us. A bit more compassion and understanding might be more appropriate than moronic comments like the one made by ‘Papa’.
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Well said everyone. Papa, if you have nothing intelligent or constructive to say–SHUT UP.
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Well when it boils down to it, Eddy is doing what any loving daughter would for her mom.
I personally applaud her and think that it’s about time the Job Centre looked more closely into helping her than harassing her.
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Well, if what the letter writer says is true, the Job Centre staff actually need more training and/or disciplinary action…..
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A very nice thought Tawney, but it will never happen. Those people think they are a cut above the mere mortals they deal with. They are about the most unhelpful bunch you could wish to meet. They are secure in a soft job for life, and treat those unfortunate enough to have to deal with them with no respect at all. In the private sector they would be sacked for their attitude. One would think it is their own money they are handing over.
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That shows how much you know then doesn’t it Colin?
The actual truth is that their jobs are anything but secure; many are on short fixed term contracts and receive very little training, and they’re required to deal with some (not all) members of the public who seem to think it’s their God given right to verbally, and sometimes physically abuse them.
Now I realise that your probable response will be along the lines of “if they don’t like it, they can go elsewhere”. But that’s not really true these days is it, not when jobs are hard to come by?
Unlike many posters, I prefer to comment based upon my experiences, and not on what I’ve read in the red tops or heard down the pub. My experience in relation to your observations stems from having worked as a fixed term employee at a Jobcentre a few years ago following redundancy from my private sector employment. It was a job, and I didn’t want to be sat around not working. However, as soon as I was able, I left that position – but at that time, I was able to do so as jobs were easier to find then.
It’s so easy to allow fact to get in the way of a “good story” isn’t it?
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The last line of my previous response should of course have read:
It’s so easy not to allow facts to get in the way of a “good story” isn’t it?
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Hello Colin.D.
I totally agree with what you say. I went into Shrewsbury Job Centre Plus (what’s the plus for anyway) and a burly security guard tried to intimadate me to try and get a reaction. I only went in for a leaflet.
Their is at least three security guards at this particular place.
They the staff at these job centres don’t care one iota about the people in front of them.
Andrew.P.
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Sorry I seem to have hit the nail on the head here…..
In the real world what I said is true, they think that just because they have to look after mummy and daddy they are immune and exempt from everything. Sorry but they should get local council help and if it means putting mother in a home then so be it. She could work at least part time hours if she put her mind to it and was positive.
I think its all about the mind set…’ i am an un-official carer so i don’t need to work’…
Yeah right.
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Papa, are you as big a moron as you appear?
Getting “local council help” actually costs the taxpayer MORE.
But then – what do you expect from a troll? A thick-headed one at that….
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PAPA are you for real???
Eddy has already stated that she has her own family….
Also she does require at least a few hours sleep and she would like to eat occasionally.
I think it’s you that needs to go into a home or at least need to shut up as you haven’t got a clue what is really being said…
Stick to reading comics they seem to suit you better..
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Hello Jeepers,
What is a troll ?
Andrew P.
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But papa you do not seem to not realise the tax payer would be paying more, if as you say you put the mother in a home. Who do you think will pay for it???, and neither do you know the full facts with regards the caring, AND I would also suggest you clearly are unaware you cant just put some one in a home in the real world is does not happen like that.
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When you think about it all parents or at least mothers were unofficial carers until it was decided that children could somehow bring themselves up.
In the 1950s women were disparaged for working as well as being full time carers which usually involved caring for parents too from my memory of the time.
We then had a situation of house prices shooting up reliant and fed on the concept of a two income family. Those unpaid caring roles whether it be that of children or elderly parents has become the problem that has no apparent answer. Unless of course you are extremely wealthy as was Margaret Thatcher who was frequently heard to say, “time is money.” She had nannies for the twins and what happened to her or Denis’s parents I have no idea, they probably died young from exhaustion.
Some countries are trying to deal with this by paying one carer to remain at at home but that is never going to be as sufficient a financial reward as working.
If this ladies mother has assets such as her own home then that could pay for her to to recieve full time care. I suppose what her daughter is being told is she cannot claim job seekers allowance if she is not available for work.
She can of course claim carers allowance although the forms are daunting to complete.
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“If this ladies mother has assets such as her own home then that could pay for her to to recieve full time care”
Correct eve up to a point when they get down to what it is now I do not know, then the tax payer picks up the bill , and if she has no assets he picks it up from the start.
This government and the last fail to see how much official and unofficial carers save the country.
As I have said glad I am not in this situation and hope I never find myself in it.
As for papa clearly an unloved child once, especially if he would be so quick to put his mother and father in to a care home and not do what he should do which is look after his own and not skulk off and let some low paid carer do it for him/her.
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Jeepers, how dare you publicly insult morons and trolls everywhere by likening them to papa. For my part I hope papa recovers from his operation soon, full frontal lobotomies are no joke.
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I think Andrew hit it on the head, we are all glad its not happening to us, until it does. I had to sell my Mothers property to fund the the various care homes she’s lived in. My Mother needs 24 hour care, she now cant walk, and needs a hoist. Her money has now run out and relies on her pension and pension credit to fund it.
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i am a care assistant i work in a care home i work long hours and get paid a few pounds above the min wage. it is hard to put mum/dad into a care home as it makes the family feel that they have let there mum/dad down and that they are abanding them.we make everyone of our residents feel that they belong once more into our family and even i wake in the night thinking how they are so dont put all carehomes down as bad there are some good ones out there with staff that work hard for a small wage.the food is lovely/the home is clean and worm and the resident is happy with there care well fed with nice rooms.and nice decor so before crystallizing care homes may be DAVID should go and see for himselth as may be one day soon DAVID i might have to care for you! (sorry about my spelling)
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Papa…
2 years ago i was a divorced mother of 3 children working full time and getting no benefits then my world fell apart when my 13 year old daughter had a stroke due to a heart defect. She has an acquired brain injury which while ‘a normal’ 15 year old has left her with very little short term memory, low levels of concentration and a physical disability called Dystonia (which has similarities to adult stroke and Parkinsons) she cannot walk without crutches and will more than likely end up in a wheelchair and that’s only the tip of the iceberg… do you suggest i put her in a home too so that i can go out to work just so that i can earn enough to pay for her care and sod all else? NOT everyone on benefits are scroungers, just like all other stereotypes are are not a reality… papa, people who offer up such offensive comments should be banned by the website.
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Oh for goodness sake. Stop wingeing and get a job !!!!
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Their are no good jobs out there. She has a full time job looking after her Mum. Why should she have to put her in a home?
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i am eddys daughter!!!!
she would dearly love a job, as she has always worked, even doing voluntary work up until nan got really ill, she really misses social interaction- i don’t think you understand how isolating this situation is!
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Well said Ann
There is no doubt tghat there are some very good care homes with great staff.
Unfortunately in my work I have visited many many others. My father is in one that is one of the best in his area and frankly is definitely not one where I would want to be.
Sorry Ann. Good luck with your job in one of the good ones.
The rest are not so lucky
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Can I ask a very obvious question? Why was this lady (who does a very good job looking after her mother) in the job centre – surely you only go into the office if you are signing on and looking for work?
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hi, im the lady in question’s daughter.
why should my mom put my nan in a care home! just because that’s what PAPA would do, why should we. we are obviously not as heartless as you!
Why should my nan pay for someone else to bath her and look after her so my mom can go to work. would you like it if some stranger was to come in and bath your mom! ? no!
Thank you for all the supportive comments above :) hopefully you guys wont find yourself in this situation.
Basically she has to go to the job centre because if she doesn’t she wont get her stamp paid, and therefore wont have a pension.
x
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