The Observer view on dementia care
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Version 0 of 1. Last November, we carried a harrowing account by Nicci Gerrard, a long-standing Observer journalist and acclaimed novelist, of the decline endured by her father, John, who had Alzheimer’s, after he was admitted to hospital suffering from leg ulcers. She described how he entered the ward articulate and able, but emerged just weeks later a broken man. The problem she identified was not one of inadequate medical care. On the contrary, his treatment by doctors and nurses was exemplary; they healed his infection and cared for him with kindness and respect. Instead, she believes, the terrible descent she chronicled during his five-week stay in hospital into incoherence, incontinence and bewilderment happened because he was deprived of the support that his family and friends could provide by regulations preventing them visiting whenever they wanted – and needed – to be by his side. The response she received was powerful and showed that her experience was typical of that of thousands more. Few families are untouched by the impact of Alzheimer’s as it takes hold among our ageing population. And our care services are struggling to meet the challenge they face. Exciting progress is being made in the search for a future medical response to the condition. But so much could be done now to ease the suffering of existing patients, by taking the small and simple step of allowing carers to stay with those living with dementia. As Nicci writes, it should not be a duty but an inalienable right, a matter of moral decency and simple human kindness. To help secure this right, she and a friend, Julia Jones, launched a campaign named after her father to persuade hospitals across the country to adopt this simple but fundamental practice. Already it has achieved widespread support and the backing of NHS staff as well as politicians from all parties. The Observer, which in the 1960s successfully fought for the right of parents to have full access to their children in hospital, is proud of the part it has played in the campaign. Today, we are launching a page on our website designed to promote the idea behind John’s Campaign, and to record actions of health service staff who have adopted its central recommendations, or have found their own way to create a dementia-friendly environment for those with Alzheimer’s and their carers. To echo the words of Nicci Gerrard in the piece about her father that prompted the campaign: “We had to abandon him to a system that could not care for him in the way that he required. At his hour of need, we didn’t rescue him – we let him go. It needn’t be like that; it mustn’t.” |