How do I help my frail, stubborn dad?

DEAR BEL, I AM writing to you about my father, as I am becoming increasingly concerned about him. He is now 89 years old, almost totally deaf and lives on his own.

I live over 250 miles away and visit about twice a year when on holiday from work.

The last time I went he asked me to stay in a hotel as I think the home is too much for him to manage on his own and has become a dirty mess, which he didn’t want me to see. The outside of the house looks derelict.

Although I phone him regularly, it always goes to his voicemail.

When I did manage to speak with him recently, he told me that he had been in hospital with a high temperature and chest infection, but had signed himself out as he was concerned about leaving his dog at home on its own. So when I was then unable to contact him for over a week, I feared the worst and debated whether I should call the police.

However, I managed to get hold of his neighbour, who assured me that he was in fact OK. I have offered him help and support, but this is belligerently refused.

If I went behind his back and contacted social services, he wouldn’t let them in and would be furious with me.

This refusal of help and the lack of communication (phone messages and emails go unanswered) is causing a lot of stress and worry.

I am really at a loss at what to do and wondered if you could offer any advice in this situation.

MARIE

HOW strange that I should catch up with your email in the week the Mail drew attention to Health minister David Mowat’s warning that the social care crisis is so great families can no longer rely on the state to look after their elderly relatives. He told the Commons communities committee: ‘We need to start thinking as a society how we deal with the care of our own parents.’

Obviously, there is some truth in this (and much truth also in the assertion this newspaper makes all the time that this society has its priorities all wrong), but your letter indicates some of the complexities families have to deal with — in terms of proximity and personality.

Your father lives a long way away and is not easy to help. What would the minister suggest here, I wonder?

It worries me that your father is living alone at his age and with his degree of infirmity.

You give me no information about your own family commitments (eg, children); nevertheless I can’t help suggesting to you that 250 miles isn’t that far and that in these circumstances I would want to sacrifice the odd weekend to visit more than twice a year.

But as I said, I don’t know your other obligations and so I am not making a judgment, I assure you. There are so many questions to ask. Does he have any good friends in his neighbourhood? Would he ever consider moving nearer to you?

Would he refuse to move to a smaller place there? Do you have siblings? And — very important — is his belligerence the result of pride mixed with unhappiness and shame? You really do need to get to the bottom of it in order to be able to help him. I know elderly folk can be difficult; nevertheless you have to do this.

I certainly don’t think you should ‘go behind his back’, but I do believe you should visit him soon and work out a plan for the future.

You need gently to explore his feelings, tell him how worried you are, ask him to work out with you what help he would like. Your own mind needs to be set at rest, by making sure (say) that somebody goes in to clean for him once a week. Perhaps that neighbour you spoke to could be enrolled to keep an eye on him, and so on.

You should look up the website of The Cinnamon Trust (cinnamon.org.uk) with a view to setting his mind at rest and getting help with his dog. I would also contact charities in his area (if this is possible) which help the elderly.

Of course, this is worrying you, but the situation isn’t going to get any easier — therefore it’s vital that you don’t put off your next visit, that you talk to him properly, look at old photographs together, be gentle, and consider all the options. Which might involve selling the house and you finding a super care home for him, in time.

But nothing will be achieved if you forget (understandably — and I do know how hard it can be) that the person most tormented by the worst frustration and worry is this venerable gentleman, your dad, himself.