Last night, RTÉ’s Prime Time launched a campaign to highlight the struggle of many family carers.
The documentary focuses on highlighting the lack of care available for home carers in Ireland with almost 200,000 people dedicating their lives to caring for loved ones, here in Ireland.
In this clip, we see Jack Brennan, an 85-year-old man, who provides constant care for his wife Bernie. Bernie has Alzheimer’s and needs a great deal of help in their home in Roscommon.
Jack however, only receives two and a half hours of homecare help a day for Bernie. This is to get her up, washed, dressed, fed and back to bed in the evening. He gets an extra two hours on a Friday, in which he has to do all the week’s shopping and household errands.
“I wouldn’t put her in a home. I love her too much. If she went into a home it would break my heart,” Jack said.
Carers provide over 6.5 million hours of care per weeks in Ireland. On average, carers care for their loved ones for almost the equivalent of a full 40-hour working week according to the documentary.
Family Carers Ireland has today said that the carers here in Ireland are not looking for praise or pity. What they want is to highlight the problem and hopefully in turn be provided with the support to enable them to continue what they’re doing.
Family Carers Ireland is calling on the government to invest in home care as it has been “inconsistent and inequitable”.
You can check out last night’s programme here.
