“It’s been very, very difficult and this journey has almost destroyed me trying to find a place for John,” says his wife, Helen*.
“He is a wonderful man, he did a wonderful job and is loved by a lot of people, and I want to keep his dignity.”
John was diagnosed with frontal temporal dementia four years ago. “I could see signals maybe seven years ago that something was happening,” says Helen of his illness. “It could have been the stages in making a cup of tea – he’d put on the kettle and then open the fridge maybe and stand there and wouldn’t know what to do.”
When told at Christmas her husband would need 24-hour care, she says, “My whole world fell apart.” But there was nowhere for John to go. Aged just 64, he entered a home for the elderly just three weeks ago. “I searched from south county Dublin to north county Dublin. I must have seen about 30 nursing homes,” she says, but all were geared for people far older than John.
“It’s hard to believe there is nothing out there for younger people. It’s very depressing. I used to come out in floods of tears from these places because you see all these old people . . . the care is fine for them, but it’s not where I saw my husband, who has different needs. He needed space to walk, maybe a little garden, but I had great difficulty because this is a business now and it’s all about putting as many beds in a place as you can.”
She felt some homes were “cherry-picking” residents who were easier to care for.
After six months of searching, she found a private nursing home that matched his needs, but using the Fair Deal scheme to pay, where the value of the family home is put towards care, she now has fears for her home.
“What it’s costing me . . . I will literally be out the door with debt by the time this is all sorted, and that makes me very sad and upset. This poor man worked from when he was 16 and never looked for one thing and now our home is on the line and everything is on the line for this.
“Nursing homes are all that’s there and I was broken-hearted about that.
“I’m trying to get used to the fact that this man has this disease, my life has changed, I’ve lost my life partner, you have all those emotions plus you are doing the business of finding somewhere and coming up against a brick wall.”
*Names have been changed
