IT is not an easy issue to face. Many will have already experienced it. But sometime in the future – perhaps a few years, perhaps in a few decades – many of us, or our relatives, will need some form of care as the inevitable process of ageing creeps in.
No one likes to think of a future where you are reliant for help to get dressed in the morning, or need someone to prepare your meals and snacks, or even help you with more intimate personal care. No one likes to think of the time when you are unable to live on your own and need to be cared for round the clock in a home. But this cannot be a reason to ignore the looming care crisis which is facing Scotland.
As we reveal today, care homes in the private sector are reporting increased difficulties in recruiting and keeping staff. Services which care for people in their own homes are also struggling to find staff. With ever-increasing demands on time, low pay and in jobs, it is no wonder there is a picture being painted of an increasingly stressed and disillusioned workforce.
The introduction of the Scottish Living Wage for care workers has been a welcome move. But there is still a long way to go if we want to ensure looking after the elderly in our society is seen as a decent, respected, well-paid career option. Quite rightly, we expect workers in this role to act as professionals and treat those they are caring for with expertise and dignity – yet the wages they earn do not reflect the importance that their jobs play in creating a decent society.
Care workers make a huge contribution to the health and wellbeing of a growing part of the population, who are also among the most vulnerable - and a society is judged upon how it treats its most weak and vulnerable. As such, care workers should be valued as equally as nurses and teachers – so why aren’t they? If the answer is because it is a group who cannot easily speak up for themselves, then it is a shame on our society and one which needs to be urgently tackled. We need to care about the carers.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here