‘I’ve been close to breakdown when things get too much’
NORMAN Phillips describes every day of the past 15 years as “feeling like a paratrooper at Arnhem desperately trying to hold the bridge until help arrives… but it never does”.
For years he has soldiered on, juggling work and his caring responsibilities but it soon all became too much.
Norman was forced to give up work as a high-flying manager aged 58 to care for wife Ros, who was diagnosed with MS and later Alzheimer’s.
Norman, 72, from Stevenage, Herts, was at one stage losing half his income to care costs. He ended up selling the family home to pay £40,000 debts.
The authorities wanted his wife of 45 years, who has the mental age of a five-year-old, placed into a nursing home, something Norman opposed.
He said: “When you are a carer you are told to look after yourself but there are no services to enable you to do that. The past years have felt like being in prison.
“I have come close to a breakdown because it was all too much.The pressure is enormous.
“There are around 6.3 million unpaid carers like me in the UK struggling to cope.The authorities know we are not just going to simply walk away and they play on that.
“I am sure they do. What we all want is some security because we are at crisis point.”
Father-of-two Norman receives 15 hours a week from social services, which is a full allocation of care and is meant to offer him a break.
Costs have forced Norman to work as a driver, ferrying special educational needs children to and from school.
Recently he went without sleep for 72 hours worrying about his home life and paying the bills.
He said: “When dealing with officialdom it’s as though common sense gets disconnected.The amount of money they waste is extraordinary.We fall, we break, we fail, but then we rise, we heal and we overcome.”