Hunt hasn’t a clue

WITH his demand for families to look after their ageing relatives at home (Mail), Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt shows he hasn’t got a clue.

I read his views just after visiting my father who is 94 and suffering from

severe Alzheimer’s disease. My father is doubly incontinent, not because he’s old but because he’s ill. He has hallucinations, not because he’s old but because he’s ill.

He no longer recognises his family, not because he’s old but because he’s ill. He doesn’t know that his son, his daughter and his wife are dead, not because he’s old but because he’s ill. He can no longer form a coherent sentence, not because he’s old but because he’s ill. He has cancer which can’t be treated because his other illness, Alzheimer’s, means he couldn’t tolerate surgery or radiotherapy. He doesn’t live with his family but in a nursing home, because he’s ill.

As was my mother, whose funeral was last week and who had had several strokes.

I have no doubt that the strain of looking after my dad for so many years was at least a contributory factor.

If we accept what Mr Hunt says, that the State can’t afford to look after the old and ill, it will be only a matter of time before he tells us that the State can’t afford to look after the sick — full stop. Or the disabled. Or anyone else so lacking in ‘self respect’ that they can’t work till they drop.

In case anyone is wondering whether my father had sufficient ‘self respect’, he left school at 13 and worked from that point until his retirement at 70 — apart from the six years when he served in the Army during World War II.

CHRIS HARRIS, Liverpool.