The Heavy Burdens on the Family Members, Where, IS that Helping Hand?

Due to the recent tragedy, from the Front Page Sections, translated…

The case where the emotionally troubled daughter drowned her own mother who had a stroke happened in Taichung; this July, there was an unemployed, alcoholic man who’d done similar things, this is because the burdens of long-term care often landed on the shoulders of the least emotional of the family members.

Being unhealthy mentally can easily cause unemployment, divorce, social withdraw, the individual starts to stay at home all day long, at which time, if there was an elderly who needed care at home, naturally, the individual would be asked to take up the responsibilities for it.  But because the individuals couldn’t handle the stresses from the caretaking, and murdered one’s own next of kin, in Japan, it’s called “nursing care murders”, even in Japan, a place with a perfectly set up system of care, there would still be, from time to time, this sort of tragedies, let alone Taiwan.  How to prevent the nursing care murders?  Of course, it’s by spreading the responsibilities, so one person doesn’t handle too much!

The Social Service Department said, that the families that are in need can file for homecare help, or someone to go to the residences and take care of the elderly person, there’s no need to do things so rashly!  But the problem is, the “Breather Program” only allows for twenty-one days a year at most, and it doesn’t do anything to help out the members of the families.

And this event also showed, the support for the mind and the body for the primary caretaker too.  The “Long-Term Care Service Amendment” that passed a few months ago, had specified that that caretakers are also, covered under the long-term care programs, if signs of emotional distress are shown, the members of the family can get professional help.  But, the DPP that might come into power had, bashed the program that it sounded and looked totally worthless, so, this bill may not get passed into law after all.

And so, this shows how important it is, for the primary caretakers of the ill to get the support that they would need, because, if the caretakers aren’t well at all, how can they manage to care for the ones they’re supposed to be looking after, and this still just shows that there’s a LOT of room for improvement needed, for the programs here.