Investigation: Caregiving in New Zealand
One of the more interesting things in owning an employment advocacy company is that it gives one an excellent insight into what really goes on in the workplace. From employees being mercilessly bullied - even as far as subjected to emotional torture, as I described one case - to an employee whose claims of sexual harassment turned out not to be just false, but rebounded when evidence was given that the complainer was actually a harasser, we see it all.
There is, however, one constant.
Every few weeks I receive a call from a distraught former worker in the care industry, having just lost her job. (every single one has been a woman so far)
Note that this "care" job really is care. Unless you have a close relative in this kind of care, you won't be aware of what it is.
The "clients" as they are called, are really patients. These are people who cannot toilet or feed themselves without the help of a caregiver. Many of the people are in stages of Alzheimer's or other terminal illness, or are permanently disabled through injury or genetics. And it is the most basic care you can give:
If a client shits himself, the caregiver cleans it up.
If a client throws up in her bed, the caregiver cleans it up.
Need help showering? Get a caregiver.
Have serious disability and behavioural disabilities? Get a caregiver.
Some of the people in care become frustrated, often lashing out violently. Caregivers are mostly women over the age of 40, and are an easy and convenient target and many of them have been subjected to what would certainly be classed as assault had the perpetrator not been deemed not responsible for his or her actions.
Caregiving, in the sense I'm describing it sums up both the best and worst of New Zealand. Old and incapable people being kept going by a team of dedicated workers. The caregivers are a special kind of people, and that's why almost all of them are women over 40. Having been a mum helps deal with the shit, both literal and figurative. Cleaning up an adult who has defecated in their pants would be most possibly the worst job I could imagine.
And these paragons do it for a lousy $17 an hour or less.
A top barista, whose only skill is making a cup of coffee, can earn $40 an hour - and even more in one of those places where tips are big - while said barista's granny is rotting away in Dante's 5th level of Hell* in an aged care facility.
For that $15-$17 an hour, we expect these valiant women to deal with the bits of human life that are left when we insist on preserving life that would have perished in past years. They are, to all intents and purposes acting as mum once again.
We also expect these women to above moral reproach, never to make a mistake, to put up with unsanitary and sometimes dangerous conditions.
For a pittance.
They get fired for taking short-cuts, they get fired for arguing, and they get fired for refusing to work with dangerous patients.
It's not just staff, either, with several rest homes having been found guilty of unsafe practice - or worse - with a couple closed by the Ministry.
Consumer: Rest Home Audits Continue to Show Failings
Two Christchurch Residential Car Homes Shut Down
Pasifika Rest Home Closed Due to Safety Concerns for Residents
In a problem with potential for disaster, the need for residential care is going to increase, and increase by very large margins in the very near future.
We have increased the duration of life by around 20% over the past 50 years, and it's a known fact that many of those extra older people will get Alzheimer's, others will become debilitated though diabetes, Parkinson's and a plethora of other diseases, as well as many who will be disabled through injury.
It gets even worse when the Baby Boom - from 1946 - 1964 - is factored in. Those years had much higher birth rates than the past 30 years, and there will be explosive growth in care facilities required as those people reach 80 and beyond. Note that the oldest Boomer is only 70 right now, and with a likely 3-fold increase in needs due to those boomers and their longer lives, we are going to need three times as many facilities, beds, and staff.
It is enormously difficult to find good people who want to work in the shittiest job in the country for the minimum wage, or slightly above, so where are the extra thousands of workers going to come from?
Who is going to invest the money to build the infrastructure needed for such growth when the Auckland property market is delivering 20% pa?
If there's already pressure on staff and facilities now, what will things be like 15 years from now?
The government, as usual, is turning a blind eye on it all, because no matter how successful this government is at staying in power, Key, English, Brownlee, et al, will not be on the benches of Parliament when the shit starts really hitting the fan.
And in a delightfully ironic coincidence, it has today been released that the (enormously fat hog) of a CEO for Summerset Retirement Villages, Norah Barlow, is earning a salary of $839,249.
I make that 36.55 times more than her employees.
They clean and eat the shit, the fat hog reaps the rewards.
As was it ever thus.
* I had to use that since most care
facilities are owned by trusts which are still or used to be christian
charities. Plus, many of them offer that level of care.
Copyright © Alan Charman