Waiting for God. “Warehousing”

this image shows an empty warehouse

I saw this coming, just hoped it never would. I am greatly saddened at hout we as a developed nationa are so woefully dictating to our elderly and disabled. Money counts, people’s rights and dignity don’t.

New rules could see 13,000 people with disabilities and long-term health needs forced into care homes. This is treating people as objects to be stored

Source: Disabled people are to be ‘warehoused’. We should be livid | Mark Brown | Opinion | The Guardian

The inescapable logic of austerity is looking likely, once again, to reduce people with disabilities to objects – and in doing so to reduce their independence, options and enjoyment of life. According to the Health Service Journal, Freedom of Information (FOI) requests from campaign group Disability United found that 37 NHS clinical commissioning groups (CCGs) in England were introducing rules about ongoing care that could force up to 13,000 people with health conditions into care homes. The CCGs will essentially begin saying to people with disabilities and long-term health needs: if you haven’t got the cash for homecare, then it’s off to a care home for you.

Imagine you have been living in your home for years. It might be where your kids were born. Being at home, having your stuff around you, having the greatest possible measure of independence, obviously means a lot to everyone, whether you’re well, ill or disabled. Then one day someone comes and tells you, “Nope, you’re too expensive here. We’re moving you to a care home unless you cough up the money to pay for what you need.”

This sounds innocuous to many people. Disabled people and care homes go together in the public mind as easily as “peak-time train service” and “cancellation”. The FOI requests found CCGs were setting limits on how much they were prepared to pay for supporting people in their homes compared to an “alternative option”, which is usually a care home. They were willing to pay between 10% and 40% above the care home option, which will often not be enough to keep someone in their own home.

Anita Bellows, a member of campaigning group Disabled People Against the Cutsis emphatic about what this means: “Institutionalisation is the logical conclusion of cutting the funds for maintaining people at home.”

As Fleur Perry of Disability United says: “Somebody who has never met the person in question can sign a bit of paper and change everything about a person’s way of life.”

One person told me that when discharged from hospital recently, they narrowly avoided being moved to a care home only because their sibling stepped in to organise an appropriate care package.

Disabled people have long fought against the phenomenon of “warehousing” – storing people with care needs under one roof as a way to reduce the costs of providing them with the support they require. The word warehousing captures the full horror people feel about being forced into institutional care, losing privacy and autonomy. Historically, out-of-town institutions like deaf and blind schools and mental asylums were huge storage vessels for disabled people who needed help and care. This segregation continued into the 1970s and 1980s in the UK, when the battle for independent living was finally won and disabled people gained rights to all of the things non-disabled people take for granted; essentially the right to live their lives however they see fit.

The Guardian kindly let me share this with you freely but to read the rest of the article please use this link.

 

Caron

Award-winning blogger and former care columnist for Devon Life magazine. I am passionate about helping elderly people and people with dementia live purposeful and independent lives.
Designer of the Dementia Assistance Card and Points Of Light award recipient, Caron hopes to help carers when resources are limited and demand is ever-increasing. I am here to support you.

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