When Meath woman Aoife felt the time had come to provide additional care for her ageing mother she didn’t know where to turn.
Her mother, who is in her 80s, was diagnosed with dementia almost a decade ago. The decline in her cognitive ability was very gradual but reached a point, four years ago, where Aoife’s father was struggling to cope as her primary care giver.
“I could see Dad was being drawn further and further down a supervisory road and the strain it was putting on him,” says Aoife.
“My mother would suffer anxiety when my father wasn’t there and took to calling him repetitively on the phone. On one occasion while he was at the shops she called him 147 times. If you’re on the receiving end, it can feel relentless.”
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Aoife, who works full time, is the sibling who lives closest to her parents, and was doing as much as she could to help.
Having siblings to help is great but “proximity trumps everything,” says Aoife, who, over time, found it was she who was calling over at 6am to ensure her mother was up, showered and dressed, ready for the day.
Often it was frustrating for both of them.”I was trying to get her up on my terms. She might have been asleep,” says Aoife.
“It became clear to me that we couldn’t keep going this way. We were at a stage where we needed consistent daily help.”
But where to go? And how much would it cost? She started her search on the internet.
“I searched affordable homecare’ and to be honest, I didn’t think there was a chance I’d find anything. The first thing that came up was AL Homecare, offering a model of care I wasn’t even aware of,” she says.
AL Homecare (the letters stand for Affordable Live-in) provides experienced, reference-checked and Garda-vetted carers who will come and live witha person who is not yet at a stage where they might need residential care. With this additional support it means they can continue to enjoy living at home.
It was exactly what Aoife’s Mum needed. “We were still at the stage where my mother didn’t require full-time nursing home care. That’s something that becomes clear later on but at that time what she really needed was someone to pick up where I left off,” she says.
Help to stay home
With AL Homecare, prices start at €485 per week (with room and food for the carer) and for that a carer lives-in, and works seven hours a day, five days per week. And if you want, the carer can work up to 6 days, 8 hours per day and for this you pay the carer an overtime rate of €12 gross per hour. Prices rise then for a more experienced carer. For an advanced carer with more than 3 years experience you pay €558 a week. On top of that there is a €1,895 placement fee which comes with a 3 week trial period, to make sure the carer you select is the right fit for your relative’s needs and personality.
With this model, you become the carer’s employer. “I was reluctant at the thought of being an employer at first because I didn’t have an accountancy background,” says Aoife. “But I found an accountant who was terrific, and it worked brilliantly. The accountant cost me around €500 a year and looked after the pay slips, the USC charges, everything, all the things I would have no competency around doing.”
It’s good to know that AL Homecare can also recommend a payroll service, if you wish to avail of that.
Tax relief of up to 40 percent is available to the person paying for the care of an incapacitated relative, a significant saving. The relevant Revenue form is called the HK1.
The agency suggested Maria, who was from Brazil and had previously worked in a nursing home in Limerick.
She moved into Aoife’s parents’ house and initially provided careover a five-day week, providing care each morning and evening.
“Initially she would help get my mother up, dressed and showered, and make sure she took her medications. By the time she finished, two years later, she was working 45 hours a week with my mother,” says Aoife.
The”secondary gain” of having her in the house was “phenomenal” too, she says, in terms of peace of mind, particularly as her mother’s dementia progressed and the risk of her leaving the house grew.
“It was just great to have a fresh pair of eyes in the house, who could see the little things that other people wouldn’t notice, like issues with dentures or glasses,” she says.
Maria kept Aoife’s mother occupied with activities during the day and helped with her bedtime routine at night. They went for walks, did household tasks together, and simply kept each other company. “I’d come in and they’d be having a giggle atYouTube videos of cats,” she says.
Having her there enabled Aoife to enjoy more quality time with her mother, sitting and chatting where previously visits had been “cleaning up and stripping beds, loading laundry and checking the sell-by dates of the food in the fridge,” she recalls.
Over time, as her mother’s condition progressed and her care needs grew, “it became clear that she needed more,” says Aoife.
Two years after Maria arrived, Aoife’s mum moved full-time into a residential nursing home, where she has been for the past two years. She’s very happy therenow, but it would not have been the right decision in 2018, when Aoife first typed ‘affordable homecare’ into a search engine.
“In 2018 a nursing home simply wouldn’t have been on the cards. Mam would have been angry and distressed at the thought of it. By the time she went in, in 2020, she was happy anywhere as long as the people around her were nice to her,” she explains.
The family cherishes thoseadditional two years they were able to keep their mother at home.
“To me it has always been paramount that Mam is surrounded by positive relationships. Maria was just fantastic. She still comes and visits my Mam now. She is part of the family,” she says.
“The AL Homecare model is the most person-centred model of care there is. It is quality, individualised care and it ‘bought’ us two quality years. It enabled Mam to be at home when being at home was the only situation that would suit her.”