Home care workers. Caring, professional and treated like shit

This is how we treat care workers

My Dad, who died 18 months back, had home care help in the last years of his illness. My Mum moved mountains to keep him at home, where he needed to be, but what she achieved simply wouldn’t have been possible without the daily help of agency home care workers.

It really isn’t possible for me to say enough about all of the carers who I met. They were amazing people, doing a really complex job with huge diligence, compassion and enthusiasm. They cared for Dad’s needs in a job that could be physically as well as emotionally demanding. They spotted health concerns and made sure things we wouldn’t have noticed were followed up properly. They took it upon themselves to help smooth out some of the bumps in the healthcare bureaucracy for their clients, in their own time.

But the most remarkable thing is that they managed to maintain this professionalism day in day out, whilst their employer consistently treated them like shit…