Where’s the “personal” in Personal Support Worker Service
Providers? We have been requiring the
assistance of personal support workers for 4 ½ years. My husband received a catastrophic brain
injury from a motor vehicle accident that left him with left-sided
paralysis. My strong, athletic husband
was no longer able to get out of bed on his own and required the help of PSW’s
for almost all of his activities of daily living.
How do I as a wife and mother remain strong and hold my
family together after such a tragedy?
I’ll tell you what you, you look to others for their help both mentally
and physically. You look to those that
are in the business to help families, like ours, to make it work and keep our
family together. Aren’t these people supposed
to provide the help that is so desperately needed? You
want to be the wife and “protect” the marriage and not inter with how you feel
about your partner intimately. That is
why you give up most of your privacy and invite these support workers into your
home.
Every morning and evening they come and they go but at least
you know that they are their to help to make things easier for you. How is it that companies that are suppose to
be the business to help, turn “personal” into “impersonal”? They don’t see your husband or your family as
real people with feeling, emotions and needs but as just as a dollar figure to
make their bottom line. When your
husband begs for consistency and instead of offering it and providing those
that are familiar, you deliberate withdraw the familiar and send employees
unfamiliar and unqualified. How can you
ask a person to have strangers on a regular basis be part of the most private
part of your day and be amongst your children and in your home? These strangers wouldn’t be strangers, if your
unprofessional attitude and lack of concern for a person didn’t cause you to withdraw
that worker or you just can’t retain them long enough in your
organization. Don’t you think hardship
has already hit our family without throwing up roadblocks!! God forbid such tragedy ever befalls a weaker
family because luckily for my family I am a strong, hard as nails advocate for
my husband and family. I won’t back down to your condescending bully
tactics or continual need to unstaff us, just to show us who is boss. How does the song go “ I get knocked down but
I get up again”? So unfortunately your
pathetic company will probably continue to overcharge and unstaff the disabled
and seniors in the community but hopefully more families come forward and speak
up!
