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thomas davison

PETER HITCHENS: Caring for our sick relatives IS 'someone else's responsibility', nurse... it's yoursBy Peter Hitchens

Last updated at 11:50 PM on 1st October 2011

Dr Peter Carter thinks we have somehow 'sleepwalked' into thinking taking an elderly relative to the lavatory, while in hospital, is 'someone else's responsibility'
Here we go, full speed ahead into the Third World. In the poor countries of Africa and Asia, people move into the bare, harsh hospitals where their sick relatives are being treated, bringing food and clean sheets and taking on much of their care. If they don�t, those relatives will die of neglect.
Now Dr Peter Carter, the General Secretary of the Royal College of Nursing, wants us to start down the same path.
He thinks we have somehow �sleepwalked� into thinking that taking an elderly relative to the lavatory, while he or she is in hospital, is �someone else�s responsibility�. From now on, it�s going to be up to us. �The services need to gear themselves up to make people aware, �You are very welcome to come in and look after mum, dad, husband, wife, etc.� �
I like that �very welcome�. What if we don�t welcome this arrangement ourselves? Will we then find �mum, dad, husband, wife, etc� lying moaning in a pool of urine, afflicted with bedsores and unfed when we finally get away from work and struggle our way to the hos�pital through the jammed streets and the predatory, expensive car park? I suspect so.
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Sleepwalked? Someone else�s responsibility? The gulf between this character and the rest of us is too wide to bridge. Hospitals in civilised countries exist precisely because the care of the sick is a specialised activity. People go to hospitals because they are too ill to look after themselves, and because their own close families lack the skills to do the job.
Dr Peter Carter, the General Secretary of the Royal College of Nursing says from now on, it�s going to be up to us
Gigantic sums of money are spent on building, staffing and equipping these places. Yet they cannot do the most basic tasks any more.
It is not because of lack of money. All these billions cannot replace the conscientious Christian spirit of selfless service that once motivated the nursing profession, and which has now been replaced by smarmy platitudes and meaningless degrees.
In the hospitals of our liberated, non-judgmental, equality-and-diversity Brave New World, the most basic tasks are not done, or are done badly. People are beginning to dread going to them.
This is where we are, and where we are going. No wonder that the �right� to be put down like a sick pet is becoming a popular cause. If the country plans to commit deliberate suicide, then it�s not surprising if many of its inhabitants feel they might as well join in.