D6

Elsie Hambrook

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Speak Up

Do you care for an ailing family member at home?

Are you the parent of a child with mental or physical challenges?

Do you contact a friend or family member regularly to check on them, make sure they take their meds etc?

If you answered yes to any of these, you are a caregiver, also called a family caregiver, an unpaid caregiver, informal caregiver, or, in the United Kingdom, a carer.

If you answered no, think of the slogan used by the Canadian Caregiver Coalition: "It's not if . . . it's when you will be a caregiver."

Or as former First Lady Rosalynn Carter is quoted as having said, though she credits an unnamed colleague: "There are four kinds of people in this world: Those who have been caregivers, those who are caregivers, those who will be caregivers and those who will need care."

Her interest in the topic is real. She opened the Rosalynn Carter Institute for Caregiving a few decades ago. This month is Family Caregivers Month in the United States.

Some caregivers are "sandwich" caregivers -- raising children as well as taking care of elderly parents. Though we've put a new name to it, families -- women -- have done this forever. The difference today is that women are in the labour force and expect some support and quality of life -- and some choices -- while providing the caregiving.

An ordinary parent taking care of children, whether they also have paid employment or not, could also be said to be a caregiver, but that title has come to mean those who are giving a level of care beyond the usual -- providing care for spouses, children, parents, extended family members or friends who have a disabling condition.

By all accounts, we will hear more about this invisible issue in the future: the population is aging, more of us will be in need of care and more of us will want to provide care for loved ones, but need support. We have smaller, more dispersed families, more separated families, later retirement and increased life expectancy with a disability.

Because people prefer to stay home as long as possible and family caregiving is less costly than institutionalized care, it makes sense to support those who want to be caregivers.

Author Silver Donald Cameron, a caregiver, puts it eloquently in a moving essay, "This Day is For Me", "If Canada's health-care system were a plant, family caregivers would be its roots -- fragile, vital and invisible. The part we see, branches, leaves and flowers, is the apparatus of doctors, nurses, clinics, labs and hospitals. But the 'visible' health-care system has always been supplemented by the invisible support of home caregivers. We rely more heavily on those caregivers with every passing year."

A quarter of current caregivers have had their employment situation affected by their caregiving responsibilities, according to Health Canada. It has also been shown that those providing four or more hours of care per week are more likely to reduce their work hours or turn down a job offer or promotion -- which interferes with pension plan contributions.

This issue is very much related to women's income level and health.

As Australia's Sex Discrimination Commissioner said recently, women are ending up in poverty in retirement partly because they do society's caring work. "The problem is not women's decisions . . . it's the under-valuation of these kinds of work and the long-term financial penalty that follows."

The cost is also in health terms. Last month, the World Alzheimer Report showed that the rate of depression for those providing care to a loved one with Alzheimer's, is three to 40 times those of caregivers who are not caring for someone with the disease.

The Canadian Caregiver Coalition recommends a national Caregiving Strategy to address the need for respite care, education, flexible workplace environments. It recommends an Advisory Panel to explore the costs and uptake of Canada Pension Plan drop-out provisions for caregivers; refundable tax credits; and the establishment of registered savings plans for caregiving.

Nova Scotia announced a caregiver allowance this summer: a caregiver who provides 20 or more hours of assistance per week is paid $400 per month, provided the care recipient has a high level of impairment and income below $19,000 if single, $35,600 for a family.

There are many ways to help caregivers. Money is just one. Respite and recognition is another.

Author and caregiver Silver Donald Cameron puts it eloquently in a moving essay, This Day is For Me: "You are a caregiver precisely because you have a deep and intimate relationship with the person you are looking after. Usually the bond is love, but not always. The bond may be one of obligation, religion or simply the lack of anyone else to do it. Perhaps you're the last child at home, and you know your father didn't want you and has never much cared for you. But now he's 99 years old, confused and childlike, and he has no place else to go. Will you walk away from his helplessness? It's unthinkable. And so the trap closes down over your life."

If you aren't (yet) a care recipient or a caregiver, take care of the caregivers around you.

* Elsie Hambrook is Chairperson of the New Brunswick Advisory Council on the Status of Women. Her column on women's issues appears in the Times & Transcript every Thursday. She may be reached via e-mail at acswcccf@gnb.ca