Who am I as a caregiver? Am I the servant of those who were abandoned by family relatives because they could no longer take care of them for whatever reasons? Or am I an angel for those who feel in the "nursing home" as in heaven, because they had "hell" at home? Who am I for Slovak politicians? And who am I to family members? Who am I to the residents of the "retirement home" today called a facility for the elderly? Do I know who I am? I will answer this question when I ask myself, why did I become a caregiver?
"I don't know why I became a nanny." The nanny answers me. "Perhaps because I lost the job I learned, and I couldn't find a better, easier one? Maybe because I like people and so I thought it was a job where I could help people who could no longer help themselves? Maybe because I don't have to travel? Maybe because I don't have the courage to travel abroad?"
Only when caregivers answer this question truthfully should they stop and think honestly. I have hundreds of hours of lectures on caregiving and dozens of hours of conversations with caregivers. But every time I leave them, I feel like I'm "leaving them in the lurch". It's easier for me to talk when, like them, I don't have to do the morning hygiene, bathe, feed, and diaper 20 clients every day in such a carousel that I ask myself, why am I lecturing them about professional standards? After all, the system in which they work will not allow them to fulfill them. What are their working conditions? And how are they prepared for professional care and individual approach when they have almost no time left to talk to the client? How many of them know something about empathic approach, about social communication, about the manifestations of dementia and aggressive behavior resulting from several psychiatric conditions?
And maybe you too think that anyone who has already raised their children and cared for their parents can care for them. No, not every parent can properly take care of their child with a mental or physical disability, and not every daughter or daughter-in-law can properly take care of their grandparents.
My story began when I started a study stay in Germany at the age of twenty-one. Perhaps my journey would have gone in a completely different direction if I had received accommodation in a student dormitory and not in a maternity home among deaconesses, which was surrounded by a large hospital complex, a facility for the elderly, a nursing home and a school for caregivers. I used the annual scholarship not only to study theology, but also for practical theology and diaconal work. Between lectures, I assisted the deaconesses in their work activities at the hospital, or I helped them in caring for the elderly. They also did not leave me alone on weekends and holidays, but took me on trips with clients, or bought me a ticket and sent me by train to another federal state so that I could get to know other diaconal services and facilities. She then waited for me at the station in the habit of a deaconess and devoted her time to me.
But the most beautiful gift was two (American) shipping suitcases, which I could fill with books about the social service of the Evangelical Church and could take them home. After successful statesmanship, I got the position of chaplain in central Slovakia. Even though my work in the choir absorbed me in working with children, youth and liturgical activities, I did not stop working with the elderly. I visited them every day, talked to them, and after a while I started looking for them at home as well. I visited those who could no longer go to church more and more often. I recognized not only their loneliness and helplessness, but also the family atmosphere that I perceived at the bedside of a sick or old person. I observed more and more the changes brought about by the old age and illness of a family member.
One day, I received an offer from Sister Deaconess Barbara Haug that she would bring her good friends, who had been caring for many years, to Slovakia, so that we too could get to know this service. The offer was not only interesting, but as it turned out later, it brought blessed fruit and benefit to my church congregations. From 1994 until today, that is twenty years, I have been using examples from the practice of one amazing woman, whose name was Anne Rose Schwarz, in my lectures. For almost a month, we spent time together during lectures for domestic nurses (family nurses) and during beautiful summer evenings with a glass of wine or herbal tea full of human stories and nursing situations, methods, techniques, or theological questions. Anne Rose Schwarz, after twenty years of hospital experience as a nurse in the operating room, completely changed her profession. She attended courses in caring for and accompanying the dying at home and instead of working in a facility for the elderly, she chose to travel to clients' homes. To every household that needed a 24-hour nanny, she brought a suitcase with a piece of home, but above all her professional knowledge as a nurse for many years, a big heart and, as she said, a good stomach. She did not take the change of her environment as a burden. She recalled: "My burden and my problems are so small and insignificant that they disappear in the environment of a person who has learned that he has three, four or six months to live and that nothing nice awaits him during those last days, on the contrary."
I value social work. I like to lecture on social management, projecting in social work and quality management, but I am more and more convinced that the most important social work takes place at the client's bedside. What we neglect or do poorly there, we will not fix either in the middle or in the top management. No one will convince me that nursing care does not require professional education and no one will convince me that today's status and role with the lowest financial evaluation is enough for nurses. It is disrespectful to a demanding and very difficult profession.
On nursing courses, I give the task of describing before the course begins what they have an idea of the role of a caregiver. Most of the course participants write that it is a nice job that requires social feeling and empathy. After the course, I have them write the same assignment. The contents of the tasks no longer match one hundred percent. Since 1994, we have trained hundreds of caregivers. I visit them directly in the facility. I know their work environment, clients, everyday and extraordinary situations, which bring both known and unknown circumstances, to which the caregiver must take a position or perform a work activity. Today, perhaps more than ever, I think that "we are all letting them down" Why? Today others need them, but tomorrow we may need them. Will we be satisfied with their care? Will they be better prepared to take care of us or our loved ones? Will they have more time for us? Will they have better work aids and work environment than today? We too will shout at them, swear at them, curse them and show our own frustration at the ruined life and ask them to wipe our "butts" and serve us, because we pay for it here? Will we be the kind of family members who will "bully" them?
Or will something change in our country and the profession of caregivers, not only in social service facilities, but also in the home environment, will become a profession that will be supported by politicians by increasing their deserved wages, in which employers will adjust the working environment and work tools, in which family members will offer a helping hand in care instead of bullying, and in which the clients themselves will learn decency, patience and gratitude?
I wish that the caregiver is not a servant of a person, but a "professional angel" who is close to a person in social need.
Author: PhDr. Mária Kovaľová, PhD. MHA
The author is a theologian with a focus on diaconal social work and a master's degree in public health with a focus on controlled documentation and risk management. Since 1991, she has been engaged in nursing care with a focus on seniors. She is a consultant and auditor of quality in social services. Since 2014, she has been the president of the Association of Professional Workers in Social Services and co-founder of OZ Planeta malého přinca. www.aopss.sk