My despair for mum

IT’S just days since we launched our campaign to reform dementia care and we’ve been inundated with your heart-breaking letters about how you’ve had to sell prized family homes to pay for the care of loved ones, while those who have never saved have had their care paid for by the state. Here are a selection of your anguished accounts — and write to us at dementiacare@dailymail.co.uk to tell us your own stories...

AFTER A LIFE OF HARD WORK

WheN my mother was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s in 2015, she was initially cared for by her husband, my stepfather.

But after he died a year later, her dementia became worse and we had to move her into residential care. to fund the £986 per week costs, we had to sell Mum’s bungalow — and spend all of her savings. to this day, we have spent £118,800 on Mum’s care.

She worked hard throughout her life. Why was she left to fend for herself after a lifetime of paying taxes and National Insurance? SUE MORRISSEY, Brighton, East Sussex. THE Mail’s articles and letters about those suffering have brought back painful memories of my mother and my motherin-law, who were both diagnosed with this dreadful illness. Successive governments have — and are still — shirking their responsibilities to solve the current crisis. There are those who say the current situation is a time-bomb. But that bomb has already exploded and nothing is being done to clear up the mess. TREVOR HAYES, knaresborough, N. Yorks.

I FEEL ASHAMED

My WIFe has vascular dementia and to get help we have suffered the insult of the local council carrying out a means-test on our finances.

I left school at 15 and started work, before being called up to do National Service aged 18. Afterwards, I worked all my life, paying every due required.

I finally saved enough to buy my house, only for it to be taken from me to fund my wife’s care. Meanwhile, those who saved nothing get financial assistance. I am now 83 and feel ashamed with the way we are being treated — especially since I’ve spent my life helping make this country the place it is. A. ROBERTS, Chelmsford, Essex.

SELLING MUM’S HOME

My Mother was diagnosed with vascular dementia about four years ago.

For the next two years, my sister and I tried to support her at home but after she nearly burnt the house down we decided she was safer in a residential home.

Now, after paying £80,000 in costs, we have had to sell the family home to fund her care.

our parents worked hard all of their lives, saving and investing, believing they were leaving a legacy to their children.

Instead their money is being used to subsidise other people’s treatment. LES HITCH, Ware, Hertfordshire.

OUR VANISHING SAVINGS

MY HUSBAND was diagnosed with vascular dementia in 2010. I managed to look after him until my own health deteriorated, when our family persuaded me to put him into care. He is now 92 and remarkably fit. He no longer recognises me but appears to be contented. Meanwhile, his £957 per week costs mean our savings are rapidly vanishing. RHODA MILLAR, Leamington Spa, Warks. My uncle Felix spent the last two years of his life suffering from dementia in a nursing home in Newry, Northern Ireland. he had worked all his life as a farmer, remained a bachelor and had hoped to pass on his four farms to his brother and sister.

But in 2017, his health deteriorated and he had to go into residential care. to pay for his care, his house and farms were rented out. By the time he passed away after 17 months in May 2018, we had spent over £50,000 on his care. PATRICIA O’HARE, Northern Ireland. And you also expressed your fury... ALMOST every family will, at some time, have someone suffering from dementia. Why can’t we maintain just half the foreign aid budget and plough the rest into dementia research? D. MARkS, Featherstone, W. Yorks.

BOTH my parents were diagnosed with dementia. Dad died a year ago and Mum recently moved into a care home. We are in the process of selling her home to fund her costs but are worried that if we can’t sell quickly enough, we will be forced to sell cheaply. How can this be fair? CAROL, Stafford.

A CARE FUND NEEDED

EVERYONE earning over a certain amount should have to pay in to a designated dementia care fund, with graduated payments based on their level of income.

J. SAYERS, Hastings, East Sussex.

IT IS about time the Government ring-fenced part of our taxes and spent it solely on dementia care.

MAIR KENNEDY, address supplied

MY BIGGEST WORRY

i AM 75. i left school at 15, as many did in the Fifties and Sixties. Since then, i have worked every day in various forms of employment. i finally retired at 70. Now, i worry that everything i have saved could be spent on care.

ALAN HARMER, address supplied.

I LEFT school when I was 16 and joined the Royal Navy, where I served for seven years. After meeting the girl of my dreams, we got married and bought a house. I’m now 83, living on my pension after my wife died last year. If I develop dementia, I will have to sell my home to fund my care. Why did I bother to strive all those years? Why did I bother to be self-sufficient?

ALAN JACOBS, Biddenham, Bedfordshire.

CROSS THE BORDER!

AS the royal Commission’s recommendation for free care was rejected by the Government in 2000 but adopted in Scotland, i suggest we should take people suffering from dementia over the border.

After all, Scotland costs all of us through our taxes for this preferential treatment of their suffering old people.

SUSAN MIDDLETON, Keighley, West Yorkshire.

THE WRONG PRIORITIES

THE dementia care scandal simply shows that the majority of our politicians are happier splashing billions of our cash on foreign aid than looking after our own.

B. EKINS, Chessington, Surrey.

HOSPITALS treat for free those people who have smoked or consume copious amounts of alcohol. i have done neither. in fact, I have cost the NHS nothing to treat illnesses that could justifiably be regarded as, at least in part, self-inflicted.

But I do have one condition I have been unable to control. i am ageing. Should I have the temerity to develop dementia, i shall be judged so responsible for the illness that i shall be expected to fund my own treatment.

How does that make any sort of sense?

SUSAN YOUNG, Coulsdon, Surrey.

WHAT’S terrible is the effect this dementia tax is having on working-class families. Those who have scrimped and saved on meagre wages to pay off mortgages throughout their lives, but were still lucky enough to have saved something towards their retirement, are having it guzzled up by this utterly unfair system.

J. HAGUE, Wakefield, West Yorkshire.

ISN’T it amazing that the Government can pay for dementia care for people who have never contributed towards the National Health Service, and make the people who have contributed to the system all their working lives pick up the bill? G. BRENNAN, Birmingham.

PROFLIGATE POLITICIANS

IF WE reined in the excesses of and the likes of profligate politicians and the Department for International Development, perhaps we could start to look after our own.

COLIN WILLIAMS, Devon.

AS WELL as sorting out the disparity in what people pay for dementia care, we also need to ask why care homes have become so expensive.

It’s a scandal.

CASPER GORNIOK, Surrey.

IT TERRIFIES ME

I AM in my late 60s and the thought of being diagnosed with dementia and losing everything I have worked for fills me with terror.

WILLIAM ROSS, address supplied.

WHY should a person who has been frugal be worse off than someone who hasn’t, despite both having paid into the same system? Dementia care funding is completely unfair and needs a thorough overhaul so that all are treated the same.

KEITH MARTIN, New Milton, Hampshire.