WHAT PRICE CARE FOR OUR ELDERLY?
Families reveal the heart-rending cost of austerity as a council plans to close a care home
AS A midwife in Aberystwyth for 40 years, 90-year-old Olive Rosser thinks she must have delivered thousands of those who live in the town.
She could walk the streets and know the faces of a huge percentage of the people she passed.
Austerity is a word we have all become used to hearing.
But the impact it is having can be lost in headlines of “millions” of savings or the odd building sell-off.
But in one Welsh town the council’s bid to save money could see pensioners moved from their homes for the first time in their lives.
In Ceredigion, the council has had to cut £38m from its budget in three years.
Now it says its budget is so tight it could have to close the Bodlondeb residential home that has been looking after the town’s elderly since the 1950s.
For the hundreds of people who packed into a baking-hot school hall in Penparcau, Aberystwyth, on Monday night in a bid to get answers from council officials, this isn’t about money.
It is about something much simpler – they want to look after their elderly.
The people in Bodlondeb are the ones who made Aberystwyth the place it is.
The current residents are the ones who drove children to school, they were the councillor, the woman who delivered thousands of Aberystwyth babies in a 40-year career as a midwife.
They worry about the future for their family members, but also for the next generation who need care in their town.
If the home in Aberystwyth closes their Bodlondeb family will be split up and moved to other homes, some up to 40 minutes away. Their families say they would not then be able to visit them as often.
Here are some of their stories.
Sandra Oliver’s father, Milwyn, 87, has lived at the home for nine years. He had a number of jobs locally, including being a bus driver.
“He has been in Bodlondeb because my mother is physically disabled. She’s more or less housebound.
“He had problems in 2007 and went to the elderly mental illness ward at Bronglais, then he moved to Bodlondeb.
“I go up there two or three times a week. I can walk or get a taxi or a bus, but I don’t have a car.
“If they moved him to Aberaeron or Tregaron or Lampeter, I am then dependent on buses and I could see him maybe once a week. He looks forward to me seeing him.
“Bodlondeb is his home and the staff there are so good. They are like an extended family. Everybody knows each other.
“The council are using this cost issue, but they could use that to close any other residential home in Ceredigion.
“Who is going to tell them they have to leave their home? It’s heartless. They’re saying it needs a £3m investment but they should have looked at that over the last 30 years, it would have been a small amount then.”
Megan Meredith’s 90-year-old mother, Dawn Ashton, has been in
Bodlondeb since December 2016. She worked at the home for 27 years.
“She would be absolutely devastated. It’s taken a long time to get her settled and to get to know people and know the staff. If she had to move I would go through hell. She gets upset when she’s somewhere new. The first few weeks she was crying lots but then she got used to it and is much better.
“I go twice a day to keep her happy. If she was in Tregaron or Aberaeron I couldn’t keep doing that.
“People have told her it’s closing but she thinks it’s for a refurbishment and she will go back. I haven’t got the heart to say that maybe you won’t.
“None of the residents complain about the size of the rooms. They say they are too small now with a wheelchair, I have taken my mother out in a wheelchair.”
Jane Rosser’s 90-year-old mum, Olive, moved in last September.
“She is just about completely blind and has got massive degeneration and can’t walk.
“The only place she can be is in a care home.
“Within 48 hours [of being at Bodlondeb] she has settled in really well. The staff there are fantastic.
“I live in Llanelli and when I come up every seven to 10, or 10 to 14 days, I have got somewhere to stay. That’s good because it means I can spend three or four days with Mum. If she had to go out to the sites in Tregaron or somewhere she wouldn’t know anyone.
“She knows her staff, she knows the families but she wouldn’t know anybody. I wouldn’t be able to go and stay in Tregaron.
“She worked for 40 years as a midwife and paid her dues all that time. She has been a massive part of the community and delivered thousands of babies.
“My mum is strong and independent, physically and mentally. When this all started three weeks ago she got an upset stomach and I think it was to do with the stress of not knowing what was going to happen to her.
“She said, ‘I really want to stay here because the care is wonderful and the food is too’.
“The Social Services and Wellbeing Act says the person should be at the centre of care. This would definitely impact on her physical health”.
Elwyn William’s brother, Gareth, 81, has been in the home for six years.
“This time I don’t think he realises. Six years ago [when Bodlondeb last faced closure] he knew everything that was going on.
“We haven’t told him and he hasn’t mentioned it to me.
“If he moved it would mean 40 minutes’ extra travelling each way.
“Since it’s been open Bodlondeb has been known for its wonderful and caring care. The staff are fantastic.
“If we had an alternative in front of us, if they were going to build a new building in the Aberystwyth area it could involve Bodlondeb and the Tregaron centre all in one. But they have done nothing.
“They could be taken further than Tregaron. It would have a tremendous effect on the whole area, not just Aberystwyth, but the villages outside too.”
Gerwyn Roberts’ mother, Augusta, 86, has been there for two and a half years. He lives about 500 yards from the home.
“When she went there she was able to walk, but as time has gone on she is confined to a chair now. The staff got to know her and to how she wants things. If she went to somewhere else they would have to start from scratch.
“The staff have come to know where and how she likes things and she is happy.
“She has never been out of Aberystwyth except three months in Hafan Deg in Lampeter when she fell.
“When she was there I went two or three times a week but here I call in to see her whenever, sometimes just for a quick visit. Maybe not every day but almost.
“She is going to get upset about moving around and for us it’s going to be more travelling.
“I won’t be able to go as much and neither will her other family members.
“She’s 86 and would be moving
from Aberystwyth for the first time in her life.
“The council say that now the majority of people want to be looked after in their homes. How could my mother cope at home? She could only have three visits a day, if she was at home she would have no-one in the night. In Bodlondeb, if she presses the bell, someone is there in a minute.”
The cuts facing councils in Wales are unprecedented.
Whether on Ynys Mon or in Cardiff’s council chamber, councillors are being told they have to slash millions from the budgets of day centres, libraries, youth centres or homes for the elderly.
Bodlondeb has been under the axe before and it’s survived.
The home officially has room for 26 but only 13 are being used.
The council says a raft of new legislation from Cardiff Bay means the rooms and access are not fit for purpose and it would cost in the region of £3m to repair the building.
Creating a new building would cost around the same.
But while closing it would save the council having to fund that bill, the community knows it will mean a huge loss.
Not only will pensioners be moved out of their home town for the first time, few expect them to survive the emotional and physical upheaval a move from a home where they are happy would mean.
The families are not naive, some as former councillors know first hand that cuts have to be made.
But they don’t understand why their council spent £2m on a financial consultancy firm, an undisclosed amount on a new bandstand or a new skate park.
They don’t understand why the Welsh Government has its 21st-century schools fund, but not one to build care homes which meet the requirements of laws they drew up.
They don’t see why if their mum is happy in a room, why someone, somewhere in an office now says that she should have to move to a room which is 12 square metres.
The council itself admits that few existing rooms in Ceredigion, or even Wales, would pass the new requirements.
Bodlondeb isn’t unique, and part of the reason there is such a swell of feeling about it is that people do not think it is the only home which will be closed.
People are living longer but their needs are changing.
The council says there is not the demand for beds.
It says the equivalent of two of their homes are empty a week and that the cost of having empty beds is going up. It says there is no waiting-list and consistently empty beds.
It says it will look at creating a bespoke dementia nursing centre because that is the type of facility needed.
But that is not the evidence people away from the council are gathering.
They have stories of people asking for residential care and not being given it.
There are people being told there was no care bed, being sent home and falling and breaking bones.
They have stories of finding pensioners in the street in their pyjamas desperate to get home to their own bed rather than a hospital bed – a bed they are being kept in not because they need medical care but because there is no residential bed for them to go to.
But the authorities are saying there is no such thing as bed-blocking.
They do not believe that the council’s words are true.
These residents, who have given their all to Ceredigion, believe they are being lied to.
As one person in that packed meeting said: “Somebody, somewhere isn’t telling the truth and I don’t think it’s the families”.
The families believe the current consultation period is a sham, and that the council has already made up its mind.
But that will mean their relatives – who consider each other family – will be moved. The nearest council homes are between 3.9 miles and 17 miles away.
But Ceredigion isn’t linked by easy roads and some of those journeys would take 40 minutes from Aberystwyth on a clear run.
The consultation about the future of Bodlondeb is open until noon on September 25.