The Little Girl in the Radiator: Mum Alzheimer's & Me (17 page)

I put my arm around mum’s shoulder.

‘I want you to write a letter for me,’
announced mum, changing the subject.

‘Okay, what’s it about?’ I asked.

‘I want you to complain to the train
company. After what they did to us something needs to be done.’

I frowned. ‘What happened?’

‘The bloody train broke down, and we all had
to walk back here from Gloucester. And me in my underwear. It’s not right to
treat old people like that.’

‘What were you all doing in Gloucester?’ I asked. It’s really hard not to get sucked in.

‘We went to Princess Diana’s wedding, of
course,’ said mum. ‘Terry was invited because he’s such an important person,
and he took all of us with him.’

‘Oh, of course,’ I agreed.

Alzheimer’s is like a religion: it requires
neither reason nor logic, only belief. It would have been absolutely pointless
to mention that Princess Diana’s wedding had been years ago, in London and not
Gloucester, that it was unlikely that Captain John would have been invited to
the ceremony anyway, and that the train company, for all their faults, would be
equally unlikely to strand a bunch of elderly commuters (all in their
underwear) miles from home. All of that was beside the point.

Incidentally, a quick investigation with the
nurses solved this one easily. In the morning several of the residents had
gathered in the television lounge to watch a documentary on the Royal family,
which had included footage of Lady Diana Spencer’s marriage to Prince Charles.
This programme had been followed by an episode of
Thomas the Tank Engine
.
In mum’s mind, the storylines of the two programmes had simply merged together
into one real-life episode. Why she had been in her underwear at the time was
anyone’s guess, though.

She gave me a pen and some paper, and waited
while I wrote the letter. When I had finished she made me read it back to her.
She seemed quite satisfied with the result.

To Whom This May Concern,

I am writing on behalf of my mother and
a number of other elderly residents, currently residing
at______________________, who have been shamefully treated by your company, and
who were left in a state of danger and distress when you saw fit to turf them
all off a train in Gloucester, clad in nothing but their underwear. They all
had to walk back to Coventry, some 50 miles, some with no shoes, and others
with no knickers or teeth.

I look forward to your comments and
your proposals for compensation.

Yours faithfully,

Martin Slevin.

Mum liked the last bit about compensation.

‘That’s a very good letter,’ she said. ‘That
should teach them a lesson.’

Heather came back into the bedroom.

‘That laundry down there is an absolute
disgrace,’ she announced. ‘It’s no wonder they didn’t want us to see it.’ She
joined us on the edge of the bed. ‘There’s one young lad down there on his own,
he hardly speaks any English, and hasn’t got a clue what he’s doing. He’s
boil-washing everything. All the coloureds and whites together, all the woollens
and cottons and silks, all together. All your mum’s woollen jumpers have shrunk
to half their size, she can’t wear any of them. Her nice pleated skirts have
all been boiled to death. All her clothes are ruined. We need to see the
manager… Where’s Sally?’

Sally wasn’t on duty, but Heather had
determined to do something about the ruined clothes. When we got home we
started to make a list of what had been destroyed.

Next day at work, I bought a box of
chocolates and sent them to mum with a letter.

Dear Rose,

I was so sorry to hear about your
misadventure with Thomas in Gloucester. This was very unfortunate, and I
promise it will never happen again.

Please accept these chocolates which
you can share with your friends, by way of an apology.

Yours sincerely,

The Fat Controller.

WE WENT BACK to the home the next day, and
took with us the original inventory of mum’s clothes. We searched her room,
searched other people’s rooms, and searched the laundry trying to locate her
stuff. When we put the pile together, we checked it off against the original
list, and we were astonished. She’d only been in this home for three months or
so. In that time, the clothes they had lost would cost – at a conservative
estimate – £1,300 to replace.

I decided to write a letter to Sally – a
serious one, this time.

Dear Sally,

I am astonished to discover that almost
the entire contents of my mother’s wardrobe has either been lost or destroyed
by the incompetence of your laundry service. A service consisting of, I
understand, one non-English speaking, under-age, foreign national with no
training.

I enclose a list of the damage and
loss, and look forward to hearing from you in due course.

CLOTHES MISSING FROM ORIGINAL INVENTORY

22 pairs of knickers (£88.00), 1 brown
handbag (£25.00), All toiletries (£25.00), 5 bras (£75.00), 1 white nightdress
(£10.00), 1 floral nightdress (£10.00), 1 pair of light grey trousers (£20.00),
1 pair of dark grey trousers (£20.00), 3 pairs of towelling socks (£6.99), 2
face flannels (£5.00), 3 bath towels (£36.00), 1 lemon blouse (£15.00), 1 dark
purple blouse (£24.99), 1 beige skirt (Berkatex, box-pleated at front)
(£37.99), 2 hand towels (£14.00), 1 pair pyjamas (£10.00), 1 light green skirt
(Berkatex, box-pleated at front) (£37.99), 1 cream short-sleeved blouse
(£10.00), 1 black velour skirt (£20.00), 1 brown velour skirt (£20.00), 1 pink
long-sleeved cardigan (£25.00), 1 lilac short-sleeved jumper (£20.00), 1 pair
of fur lined winter boots (£55.99), 1 blue frilled nightdress (£10.00), 3 white
plain nightdresses (£30.00), 1 plain v-neck t-shirt (£8.00), 1 pink v-neck with
white collar t-shirt (£10.00), 3 pairs of cotton socks, blue, purple and white
(£5.99), 1 pink blouse (£15.00), 1 pair of black trousers (£20.00), 1 dark red
tie-up blouse (£24.99)

CLOTHING RUINED IN THE LAUNDRY

13 skirts (£390.00), 1 purple blouse
(£28.99), 1 pink jumper (£20.00), 1 green blouse (£20.00), 1 sky blue jumper
(£25.00), 1 blue all-in-one jumper (£25.00), 1 green cardigan (£24.99), 1 lemon
blouse (£15.00), 1 pyjama top (£10.00), 1 cream silk pair of shorts (£5.00), 1
plain lilac top (£5.00), 1 large pink woollen jumper (£15.00)

I also notice that you have recently
sent me a bill for £1,500 in respect of accommodation charges at your
establishment; obviously that will not now be paid until the matter at hand is
settled amicably.

Yours faithfully,

MARTIN SLEVIN

Sally never replied. I did, however, receive
another bill for £1,500 for mum’s stay, with no reference at all to my
complaint.

There exists in the UK a committee which was set up to oversee care homes, to ensure they work to a well-defined
standard and to deal independently with complaints like mine. I wrote to the
committee describing my grievances, and enclosing a copy of the above letter to
Sally. The committee eventually replied to me.

Dear Mr Slevin,

After an extensive investigation at the
___________ nursing home, in which we asked Mrs Sally _________ to look into
your claims, she assures us that her staff are fully trained, and that all reasonable
precautions were taken for the maintenance of your mother’s clothes; however
you must understand that mistakes do happen, and if that has been the case
here, then we apologise. We were informed by Mrs Sally ________ that a member
of staff spent a considerable amount of time conducting a thorough search and
found the majority of the missing items in Mrs Slevin’s room.

We trust that this brings the matter to
an end, and look forward to you resuming good relations with the home you have
chosen for your mother’s residence.

Faithfully,

I couldn’t believe that this so-called
professional body, who were supposed to oversee such poor nursing homes, did
not even bother to visit the place to investigate my complaint. Instead, they
asked the manageress of the home to investigate herself on their behalf and,
unsurprisingly, she found nothing to be amiss.

I contacted the social worker and lodged a
formal complaint with her, but I was so disenchanted with the whole process
that I held out no optimism for a satisfactory conclusion from her department
either.

The next week Heather and I visited the
home, packed mum’s suitcase with the rags she had left, and walked out with
her. One of the nurses started to cry as we left.

‘I’m so sorry about this,’ she whispered to
me, as we walked mum down the corridor, ‘but there’s nothing we can do. We
can’t say anything or we’ll lose our jobs.’

I nodded to her. I did understand her
position – and many of the individual nurses had been kindness itself – but if
no-one ever takes a stand in matters like these, if no-one is prepared to
defend these unfortunate souls who cannot defend themselves, then the
irresponsible and incompetent people who run such places are never made to pay.

Captain John waved to mum as we walked
towards the door. I felt so sorry for taking her away from her new friend, but
I felt I had no choice.

‘Where are we going?’ she asked, as we
walked back to the car.

‘We’re going to another hotel, mum,’ I lied.

‘Ooh, you two really do spoil me,’ she said.
‘I’ve never had such lovely, long holidays!’

I replied to the committee as a last resort,
but I held no hope for any real satisfaction:

Dear _________________________,

I am in receipt of your letter dated
19th July, and find myself lost for words quite frankly!

You state that on your behalf Mrs Sally
____________ investigated my complaint!! You have therefore allowed one of this
home’s staff to investigate themselves. If they are to do this what is the
point in contacting an independent commission such as yourselves?

The reply I received was full of
inconsistencies, untruths and misleading statements, and in no way am I either
happy or satisfied with the way you have handled this matter.

To take issue with only one point in
your letter as an example:

‘A member of staff spent a considerable
amount of time conducting a thorough search and found the majority of the
missing items in Mrs Slevin’s room.’

This is simply not the case, and you
will see by the itemised list attached that over 80% of the clothes my mother
arrived with were either lost or destroyed during her short stay there. In fact
the state of her clothes was so bad that several of the home’s own staff were
in tears and repeatedly apologised to us when we went to pick up Mrs Slevin,
the day we moved her away from the home.

We have had to replace the underwear
and toiletries and nightwear already. Some of the items listed were new which
we removed the labels from the day she was settled into the home. The total
cost of replacements is £1,319.91, which does not include the large pile of
clothes which we left at the home, as they were unfit to wear, due to rips,
shrinkage, tears and discolouring due to poor laundry.

In the event of this I do not feel that
I owe them anything, and will not be settling the £1,500 bill they have the
cheek to keep sending me.

Faithfully,

Martin Slevin.

We drove home, mum happily enjoying the
view, me wondering what the hell I was going to do now. As it happened, the
social worker rang within a couple of hours.

‘I’ve got you a place at a new home,’ she
said. ‘Charnwood House. It’s much nicer. Can you pop over to see it, do you
think?’

We said we could.

Maybe I was just being suspicious and
cynical, but it seemed to me that this new place had quickly become available
when I started to cause a disturbance in the ‘system’; when I had first
enquired, and was not being disruptive, I was told more or less to take it or
leave what was offered. The more I came to deal with the Social Services over
the years, the more I came to the unshakeable conclusion that you get nowhere
by being civilised and polite. The more you bang your fist on the table and
make demands and issue threats, the more likely you are to get what you want.
It shouldn’t be like that, but unfortunately it is; and if you ever find yourself
in the position of being a carer for a member of your family with dementia, and
you have to deal with Social Services, then be prepared to speak out loudly.
You will need to be a warrior on their behalf, their champion at arms, you will
need to be prepared to fight their battles for them, and there will be no
shortage of bureaucratic dragons for you to slay.