Calling Time

Judith Hereford

Description

Murder, neglect, excessive regulation. What’s the difference? Written in two parts, Calling Time brings to life the significance of elderly care with particular focus on the poor treatment of those in residental care. 

Calling Time follows the fortunes of two very different characters, Kristine and Angela, both of whom are carers in a residental home in 1950s’ New Zealand. In Part I, Angela takes it upon herself to put 4 patients out of their misery. Written from the perspectives of the residents, each account provides an illuminating insight into how little care each receive. Angela soon finds that questions are being raised about the care she provides and when questions are asked about a 5th patient in her care, she is scared into resigning. 

Set 46 years later, Part II explores how Angela and Kristine cope as they grow old. Angela has become a virtual recluse, living in remote hill country with only her dog for company. Having moved to the UK, Kristine, a model of caring when she lived in New Zealand, finds that her elderly mother-in-law tries her patience, especially when she is living with them. After putting her in a home, the regulations become such a burden that the home is at risk of going out of business. 

Calling Time highlights the inadequacy of residential care that befalls many elderly residents. It also asks whether it’s better to be put out of your misery before being forced to move to a home with the possibility of ill treatment. This book is written from several different perspectives within the care community – the matron, the carers, the residents – and will appeal to readers who have worked in a caring profession and as well as those interested in care for the elderly. 

Sujets

• Nueva Zelanda
• New Zealand
• Sagas
• Nouvelle-Zélande

Informations

• Publié par: Troubador Publishing
• Date de parution: 01 octobre 2018
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781785896361
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 3 Mo

Extrait

calling time judith hereford
Copyright © 2016 Judith Hereford

The moral right of the author has been asserted.

Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of research or private study, or criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, this publication may only be reproduced, stored or transmitted, in any form or by any means, with the prior permission in writing of the publishers, or in the case of reprographic reproduction in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside those terms should be sent to the publishers.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

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ISBN 9781785896361

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

Matador is an imprint of Troubador Publishing Ltd
To James, Mark and Henry for their enthusiastic encouragement, to the BSG who were in at the beginning, to Suzette my guiding star and to Hugh for his kind oversight
Contents
PART ONE - New Zealand 1953

Matron
Agnes Thorwood
Angela
Joe Patterson
Kristine
Elsie Hammond
Edith Nolan
Kristine’s Letter
Angela
Kristine
Angela
Bill Harkness
Angela
Agnes
Bill Harkness
Kristine
Angela
Matron


PART TWO - England, 1997

Kristine
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven - England 2000 / Living With Us
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty One
Chapter Twenty Two
Chapter Twenty Three
Chapter Twenty Four
Chapter Twenty Five - In the Nursing Home
Chapter Twenty Six
Chapter Twenty Seven
Chapter Twenty Eight
Chapter Twenty Nine - New Zealand 2002
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty One
Chapter Thirty Two
Chapter Thirty Three
Chapter Thirty Four - England
Chapter Thirty Five
Chapter Thirty Six
Chapter Thirty Seven
Chapter Thirty Eight - New Zealand
Chapter Thirty Nine
Conclusion - England
PART ONE
New Zealand 1953
Matron
‘Bugger!’, Matron muttered. She could have sworn there was more sherry. She didn’t remember having anyone in – other than Valerie and she didn’t drink. Very prissy about drink, she was. Isobel Gardiner came to the reluctant conclusion that she must have drunk the sherry herself. Staring at the remains of the delicious golden liquid, she realized there was only enough for two drinks. A pity, but she supposed she shouldn’t have any more when she was going back on duty. Isobel poured half the sherry into a glass and hobbled painfully over to her armchair. ‘God’, she needed to sit down. Her legs were killing her; she looked down at the swollen, purple veins that so disfigured her legs. It was no wonder they were painful. Ugly as sin too. Settling into her chair, Isobel took a large gulp from her glass and sighed with contentment as she surveyed her surroundings. She would miss this room, larger than many a Matron’s quarters, with its view over the garden at the side of the building with a neat hedge beyond, screening the road. Having a fireplace for real fires was a treat, with a wide mantelshelf for one or two ornaments. Not that Isobel had many ornaments. She wasn’t the type for knick-knacks that required dusting. She slowly sipped the remainder of the sherry to make it seem more, cursing that she had not bought another bottle when she was in town. It was unlike her to walk past a bottle store.
At fifty-eight, almost fifty-nine, Isobel was looking forward to retirement. She was fed up dealing with smelly beds, dirty bottoms, gungy false teeth and moaning patients. There was a time when she had enjoyed looking after the elderly but that had long passed. Still, she’d managed to please the Board that morning.
“Well done Matron, numbers are up to scratch. I don’t know how you do it,” a smiling Richard Cameron had said, and the Board had agreed.
They must think she was doing a good job. The Chairman was generally stingy with his praise. Nobody noticed Isobel’s guilty blush. They were only interested in the legal requirements, staff ratio to patients, that sort of thing. They didn’t know about the corners cut to mask the lack of staff, the fact that most of the patients were totally dependent, only a handful able to walk on their own. It was very heavy work and she felt the Board should recognize it with a pay rise.
Isobel’s legs were aching unbearably. Her varicose veins had become much worse over the years and being overweight didn’t help. Diet after diet had been tried but as soon as she stopped, the weight went back on. She arranged the footstool in front of her armchair and heaved a sigh of relief as she took the weight off her legs. The blocks would have to go under the foot of the bed again tonight.
She shouldn’t have to be going back on duty in the evenings and she certainly shouldn’t be helping to lift heavy patients who couldn’t help themselves. It’d done for her shoulders again now. She knew she shouldn’t do it, she should ask one of the others but they were always short handed, never enough staff. Sitting there, sipping her sherry, Isobel reflected on the latest murmurings in the Home. This time they were about Angela. Well, she had a certain sympathy with Angela. She’d overheard her asking Sister why, if God was so clever, he didn’t put these old people out of their misery. Isobel had thought Sister’s answer, “God has his reasons,” was inadequate. It didn’t explain anything. Why did we keep these people alive? Edith Nolan didn’t have any quality of life. She couldn’t say anything sensible, she was incontinent, had to be fed, had no visitors. She was just there, and that was it. Elsie Hammond was just one long moan. She could barely move her head and could only feed herself if the spoon and plate were put into her hands and about six inches from her face. She could talk all right, she never let up. It must be jolly miserable if you couldn’t move and were in pain most of the time but her constant moaning was very tiresome for everyone else. “Can you get me this, can you pass that, why do the girls never put things where I can reach them?” On and on it goes. Maybe she feels that a misery shared is a misery halved but that was selfish in Isobel’s opinion. Angela shouldn’t slap the patients though, if she did. Isobel only had Bill’s word for it and if he hadn’t seen her do it, he might be imagining it. He was a sanctimonious old sod anyway. The girls were only young and they were at the sharp end. They couldn’t be patient all the time.
Isobel couldn’t resist a smile. What if she’d said, ‘Well Mr Harkness, you may be surprised to know that I believe in euthanasia.’ Isobel laughed out loud. He would have been more than surprised; he’d have been horrified. Just as well she hadn’t. Knowing him he’d have reported her to the Board.
Damn! Why hadn’t she put the bottle where she could reach it. Isobel struggled to her feet to refill her glass with the last of the sherry before gratefully sinking back into her chair. She wished she hadn’t eaten all the chocolates. Queen Anne, dark ones. Delicious.
She continued to search her memory. Did she have Kristine’s starry-eyed dedication forty years ago? If she did, she soon had it knocked out of her. Cancer you can’t treat;TB, well they did have some drugs for that but patients were ill for years and some still died of it, Polio was a menace, the wretched Parkinson’s ruined many lives. Isobel acknowledged that things had been far worse before the First World War, when most diseases had to run their course and the patient hoped for the best. After that war, there were many damaged lives and since the Second World War, there were many more. Even now, half way through the twentieth century, there was still no cure for many diseases, although with Penicillin, there was now hope for things like pneumonia which had previously killed so many, particularly the elderly; besides, did it matter, we were all going to die in the end.
She wondered how long it would be before Kristine lost her illusions, started cutting corners, pushing a bit here, shoving a bit there. Perhaps she wouldn’t. She was booked in to do her training in January and seemed a dedicated type but Isobel felt that Kristine was too soft and wouldn’t last the course. She’d been with them six weeks and whenever there was a problem with a patient or someone obviously in pain, her face crumpled up and Isobel kept expecting her to burst into tears. Still, they’d been lucky to get the extra pair of hands. Apparently when she’d applied to do her training she’d asked to start early but Matron Thompson had said that wasn’t allowed. She’d suggested she might like to get some experience in one of their affiliated old peoples’ homes around the district, and so she’d turned up at Mountain View.
Isobel couldn’t believe she had run out of sherry. Of course she would prefer gin but it wasn’t quite the thing for a woman living on her own. Her Mum had called it ‘mother’s r