The older parents and the special child who are in their prime but cannot do without care… “Happiness with the elderly” families are looking forward to social assistance. Text/Yangcheng Evening News All-Media Reporter Li Meiyan Intern Guo Yixuan
Liwan District, at 6:00 a.m., 78-year-old Aunt Xian got up and prepared breakfast, turned around and walked into the room to wake up her daughter to take medicine, and helped her record the heart rate in the morning; Haizhu District, at 9:00 a.m., it was already a bit difficult for 74-year-old Aunt Lian to go up and down the four-story stairs, but in order to allow her daughter who doesn’t like to go out more, she insisted on taking her daughter to the vegetable market to buy vegetables; Yuexiu District, 4:00 p.m. At the time of Komiks, 65-year-old Aunt Liao directed her son to move a bag of clothes to the second floor, and they planned to send the clothes to their hospitalized friends the next day.
They are typical families of “supporting the disabled by the elderly”: their parents are at retirement age, but because their only children are accompanied by intellectual or mental disorders, they are still running around to support their disabled children, making it difficult to enjoy their old age as their peers.
In December last year, Guangzhou Yangai Special Children Parent Club, the first social service institution in China to serve parents of special children, conducted a survey on nearly 600 ordinary elderly people and nearly 300 “old and disabled” families in Guangzhou, and released the “Guangzhou “Research Report on Elderly Care Services Requirements for Mental Disabilities Families in Mental Disabilities”. When mentioning the difficulties and challenges of children’s future resettlement regulations, more than 60% of parents are most worried that their children’s lives are not guaranteed.
The parents who are getting older and the special children who are in their prime but cannot do without care, the elderly care anxiety of families who “maintain the disabled” are tangled into a huge question mark, waiting for the society to straighten it with practical actions.
Two-year-old families with mentally disabled participate in parent-child fun sports meetings
The 78-year-old mother and 44-year-old daughter: the thoughtful plan and the increasingly aging reality
2016 was the most difficult year in Aunt Xian’s memory. First, her wife was sent to the ICU after she became more emphysema. After being hospitalized for three months, she finally returned home to rest. Her daughter A Ting, who was mentally disabled, suffered a stroke and was admitted to the hospital.
Aunt Xian, who was 72 years old at that time, took on the burden of the family alone and took care of the doctor every dayThe hospital ran around the two ends and took good care of the two bedridden patients until their condition gradually stabilized. During that time, she lost more than ten pounds at once.
But the crisis has not really passed. In August 2020, her husband, who had been bedridden for a long time, passed away. In September, A Ting was admitted to the hospital due to swelling throughout her body. The problem of bradycardia after the stroke became more and more serious. At the lowest point, her heart rate was only more than 20 times per minute. The doctor suggested installing a pacemaker for A Ting, otherwise “it is possible to fall asleep and the person will be gone.”
“It would be fine if I really fell asleep and left, but I was afraid of being paralyzed and even suffering.” Aunt Xian said that A Ting was hospitalized three times last year. For a period of time, she even had difficulty getting up and had to deal with urination and defecation in bed. In August last year, she made up her mind to install a pacemaker for A Ting: “I’m recovering well now, but my right hand is not as flexible as Komiks used to be, and I couldn’t hold things.”
The hardest time was when I was in the hospital. Aunt Xian, 78, has hypertension, diabetes and heart disease, and her health is no longer as good as before. Once, A Ting was hospitalized for two weeks and happened to have an available bed in the ward, so she pleaded with the doctor and went in. For this reason, she has been Babaylan href=”https://funnybookish.com/”>CinemaThe hospital and the doctor: “I also have a heart disease, and I can’t take care of myself. The doctor asked me and my daughter to be hospitalized together, which saved me from hiring a nursing staff.”
Considering that I was getting older, Aunt Xian asked for advice from many sources over the years and made as meticulous arrangements as possible for her 44-year-old daughter: She joined the unit for her daughter and bought social security for more than 14 years. Now she is still missing for 9 months and has been 15 years. She bought two “Safety Project” insurances. Last year, A Ting’s total hospitalization fee was more than 130,000 yuan. In the end, the medical insurance and insurance reimbursement was only more than 15,000 yuan. She also spent a lot of money in Guangzhou for her daughter. href=”https://funnybookish.com/”>Babaylan The city’s disabled nursing home has applied for a waiting round, hoping that when she is unable to take care of her daughter, her daughter can spend the rest of her life in the nursing home; she even began to consider who will be her daughter’s guardian after she left.
The thoughtful plan faces the increasingly aging reality, sometimes it is inevitable to be stretched. In September last year, due to the increasing problem of lumbar disc herniation, Aunt Xian had to be hospitalized for surgery. But now A Ting is unable to take care of herself at home alone. In desperation, she had to ask her sister to come to take care of her for a few days, and “my sister is also in her 70s.”
Some time ago, the staff came to Aunt Xian to conduct a comprehensive assessment of her elderly care needs, and the assessment results were mild disability and second-level care. “To take good care of her, I mustEnsure yourself good health. “Since A Ting’s stroke, in order to facilitate night care, Aunt Xian has been sleeping in the same bed with her daughter. She had to get up to check if there was any movement, “I hope I can stay at home until I can’t take care of her, and then see if it’s possible to live in a nursing home with her. ”
A Ting (left) and Aunt Xian were looking at photos of their previous travel.
The 65-year-old mother and 38-year-old son: “I have the ability to take care of myself, and I will live a better life in the nursing home in the future”
” Grab this place with my right hand and pick it up. “As soon as he came back from outside, Aunt Liao directed his son A Ming to move a bag of clothes to the second floor. A Ming wiped his sweat, tightly grasped the knot pointing to his mother with his right hand, and took the bag into his arms with his left hand. He looked focused, without saying a word, and walked to the stairs obediently.
This is the daily life of the mother and son getting along. 38-year-old A Ming was diagnosed with an intellectual disability since childhood and it was difficult to complete slightly complicated tasks independently. Aunt Liao, 65, patiently dismantled each movement and steps one by one, and converted it into instructions that his son could understand and execute, so as to exercise his ability to take care of himself.
“In 2007, he suddenly fell ill, and after that, he adjusted for 10 years, his condition was basically stable. “Now looking back, Aunt Liao still blames herself. A Ming suffered from epilepsy at the age of 6, but at that time, due to lack of understanding of this disease, he missed the best opportunity to effectively control it. In 2007, A Ming’s condition turned sharply. The schizophrenia caused by epilepsy made him unable to sleep at night. “Sometimes, she muttered alone and spoke to the air.” In those 10 years, she took her son to seek medical treatment and medicine: “At the beginning, the monthly pension was only 1,111 yuan, and he had to spend six or seven hundred yuan every month just taking medicine. ”
She never avoided Ah Ming’s condition, and even often “vaccinate” to him, saying “mom will leave sooner or later.” In the race against time and disability, she hopes to help her son achieve basic self-care. Cinema‘s desire to help her son achieve basic self-care: “If I leave, he has the ability to take care of himself, and he will live a better life in the nursing home in the future. ”
At the beginning of this year, Aunt Liao had to be admitted to the hospital for thyroid problems, and how to take care of A Ming’s daily life became the biggest problem.
She left enough food in the iron box where she kept her change and designated A Ming to solve the problem at a snack shop near her home.She had three meals a day and asked the owner of the snack shop to help pay attention to Aming’s situation; at the same time, she entrusted a distant relative to accompany Aming every night to prevent accidents such as “touching the electric door with wet hands”. Only after everything was arranged was made, she could go through the admission procedures with peace of mind.
But while Aunt Liao was hospitalized, A Ming, who had not seen her mother for a long time, called and said, “You are not at home, I am so lonely alone.” This call made her break the defense instantly. She softly comforted the other end of the phone, “You clean the house and your mother will come back.” The obedient A Ming focused on shiny tables, chairs, benches, and corners in the house: “He wiped the iron gate outside the house, but the wind blew the door slammed and locked him outside.”
Now A Ming, nowadays, can eat, dress, bath and go to the toilet by himself, shop independently, and carefully place the things at home neatly. Occasionally, he listened quietly to the tricycle outside the door crossing the loose stone road and left with a “bang” all the way. He likes to play basketball and often lingers around Yuexiu Park Stadium with the ball, waiting for the evening to gradually fewer people in the court, and carefully shoot on the court. He also likes to browse current news on his mobile phone, claiming that he likes to watch international news the most. Even when reporters asked him what were the popular international news that day, he blurted out that “Biden was infected with the new crown.”
A Ming like this also made Aunt Liao fantasize about what would happen if her son had a sound intelligence development: “In that case, he should have already started a family now.”
Parents of special children gathered together to participate in entertainment activities
The 75-year-old mother and 38-year-old daughter: Respite service, let family affection take occasional vacation
After her husband passed away, the burden of caring for the only daughter Longlong, who was intellectually disabled, was pressed on Aunt Lian’s shoulders.
From outsiders’ perspective, Longlong, 38 years old this year, is not considered a caring “little cotton-padded jacket”. She is sensitive by nature and does not like to contact the outside world. She often stays at home to watch the cartoon “The Guardian of the Universe” or Cinema who reads the early education storybooks borrowed by Aunt Lian from the library. Sometimes she is emotionally changeable and will be afraid of her old age.My mother got angry and broke the six elderly mobile phones of Lian Aunt Lian.
“Although I have raised her for more than 30 years, sometimes I don’t know what she is thinking.” Aunt Lian said that Longlong’s temper comes and goes quickly like a child, and she can’t predict it. Babaylan “For example, if the food is cold and she asks her to heat it up before eating, she will be unhappy. Sometimes she is taking medicine and telling her to pack up the things for a while, but she will be unhappy again.”
Mothers always use the greatest kindness to tolerate and understand the children. In Aunt Lian’s opinion, Longlong has poor language expression skills. She knows some things but cannot express them, so she will be anxious. At this time, “Don’t conflict with her head, and you can only reason with her after she gets angry.”
But the mother, who is overwhelmed by the double burden of life and psychology, also longs to be tolerated and understood. Once Longlong lost his temper again and even beat someone, the frustrated Aunt Lian called the help number of Guangzhou Yangai Special Children Parent Club. That night, Yang Ai arranged for a social worker who often entered the household to move into Longlong’s house, and temporarily took over the care burden on Aunt Lian, so that Aunt Lian could go to her sister’s house to rest for a short week. When talking about this rare “respray service”, Aunt Lian is still full of gratitude: during that time, social workers helped take care of Longlong, led her to learn how to buy vegetables and cook, and study at the street medical station. After discovering the safety hazards of the kitchen, she assisted in contacting professionals to renovate the kitchen, “I think of that social worker when I see the kitchen now.”
Although he kept shouting from time to time, “I will ignore you if I get angry”, when it comes to Longlong, Aunt Lian always surrenders: “What’s the solution? I can’t let her go.”
When her husband was seriously ill and was hospitalized in 2009, Aunt Lian ran around the hospital, and was unable to find a place suitable for short-term custody of mentally disabled people. She could only send her daughter to her own sister’s house to take care of her.
In 2016, Lian Aunt Lian had to be admitted to the hospital for surgery due to lumbar disc herniation. She was worried that Longlong would take her to the hospital: the mother and daughter had three meals a day in the hospital cafeteria, and during the day, Longlong sat in the hospital playing or chatted with the nurses, and had Komiks and went home to take a shower and sleep after dinner. During the three months after the operation, when I went home to bed and rest, because it was inconvenient to buy vegetables and cook for Longlong, Aunt Lian specially hired a nurse to help.
“She is getting older and older, and our destination is always a nursing home. When I still have the ability, I always want to let her live a warm life with a family.” When I mentioned the future, even my aunt had melancholy and helplessness in her tone. She planned to sell the house she lives in now and take Longlong to live in a nursing home,”I hope that in the future there will be some such institutions that can accept us and move in together. ”
Parents of special children participate in the theme activity of the lawyer’s open day estate supervision
In-depth interpretation
“Superbing the elderly with the elderlyCinema“How to support the elderly:
The answer is still being explored Changes have occurred
The parents who are getting older and children who are in their prime but still cannot do without care for others. I hope that an institution can accept elderly parents and disabled children at the same time—is the same voice of Aunt Lian and others.
The Statistical Bulletin of the Development of Disabled Persons in Guangdong Province in 2020 shows that as of the end of 2020, there were 1,774 disabled care service institutions in Guangdong Province, including boarding care Komiks has 30 service agencies, 1,695 day care agencies, and 49 comprehensive care services. However, for older people with mental disabilities, the more common choice is to go to public care institutions. In Guangzhou, there is only one public care in Guangzhou for disabled people.
This year 3Cinema month, Lian Aunt Ranked Longlong in Guangzhou Disabled Care Home, and the latest waiting list for application is 692. As of June 29 this year, 706 people have applied to Guangzhou Disabled Care Home for Nursing. The application time shows that the first waiting staff has been waiting for 11 years – he applied for waiting time in July 2011.
How many “in this way” in Guangzhou are there? href=”https://funnybookish.com/”>BabaylanOld and disabled families? This may be a glimpse of the following: Guangzhou Sunshine Angel Social Work Service Center data shows that there are 1,730 registered disabled people in Shilou Town, Panyu District, Guangzhou, and among the disabled people, there are 117 families with disabilities who rely on elderly people aged 60 or above to provide care and support, accounting for 6.8% of the disabled people.
“If calculated based on this ratio, there are about 20,000 to 30,000 families in Guangzhou that have “old and disabled people” and that if these parents leave in the future, the resettlement of children will be a big problem, and they need to intervene and pay attention in advance. “Liang Zhitu, Director-General of Guangzhou Yangai Special Children Parent Club, told reporters that since 2018, Yangai has formed a double-old family member group to provide double-old homes for mentally disabled peopleFamily members provide case management, life care, emotional support, information, home skills training and other services. “We hope that through such practice, we will explore how service support for families with “superior care for the disabled” should be done. It is different from ordinary elderly care services and from special children’s families whose parents are not yet retired.”
In Liang Zhitu’s view, the key to truly solving these special family elderly care problems is to return to the community’s home elderly care: “This group is too large, and the government’s bottom-up measures can only digest thousands of beds at most. Can existing community elderly care service resources, rehabilitation and household service resources, etc. be Babaylan is suitable for families with ‘super-aged and disabled’? How to ensure the service and quality of life of these special families? These issues need to be considered in future policy design. ”
The answer is still being explored, but some good changes are happening quietly.
In June 2019, under the business guidance of the Yuexiu District Disabled Persons’ Federation of Guangzhou City, the “Guangzhou District People with Mental Disabilities Support Pilot Project for Two Elderly Family Support for Mental Disabilities” was officially launched, and some regular and emergency response services were gradually formed, such as providing psychological counseling and emotional support, coordinating home-based elderly care personnel to take care of mentally disabled people in the short term to reduce the burden on parents of mentally disabled people, etc. At the same time, it has also gradually improved the service resource library and service support system in Komiks. Liang Zhitu found that among the more than 30 families they provide case management, Cinema parents have gradually learned to refine specific needs, such as property such as how to plan reasonably and how to do intentionally custody, etc., and have a clearer understanding of children’s future planning and placement.
It is reported that Guangzhou Yangai Special Children Parent Club has implemented the “Guangzhou ‘Old and Disabled Family Energy Enhancement Support Plan” through the implementation of the 9th Guangzhou Social Organization Public Welfare Venture Capital Activity Funding Project, extending existing practical experience to more “old and disable” families. “Babaylan At the same time, we have also discovered some new needs, such as breathing services. The government currently does not have relevant service resources. In the next step, we are preparing to establish a temporary care point and explore relevant service models.” Liang Zhitu said.
Cinema (At the request of the interviewee, A Ting, A Ming and Longlong are all pseudonyms.)