Within a few months of
starting as an unqualified social worker in Charwood Area Social Services
Department it was decided that I could take part in the Area on call rota.
Charwood provided a
local out of hours emergency service. Every social worker in the team had to be
on the rota. This meant that about once a fortnight I was on call during a week
night. About every three months I had to cover a whole weekend, from the end of
the day on Friday until the following Monday morning. Being the late 1970’s,
there was no such thing as a mobile phone or even a pager, so your home number
was placed on the office answer phone and you could not leave home as long as
you were on duty – unless, of course, you had to respond to an emergency.
I was on call one cold
February Saturday when Robina phoned.
Robina was an elderly
woman who was well known to Charwood Social Services Dept. When her husband
died, she fell to pieces and her behaviour became disinhibited and erratic. She
developed a somewhat cavalier attitude to continence, and was frequently
incontinent of urine and faeces. I had on one occasion had to visit her at
home, and discovered that, if she was taken short while in bed, she would
simply scoop up the excrement and place it on the windowsill. The windowsill
consequently contained a neat line of turds in varying stages of decomposition.
Robina lived in a
village a few miles out of Charwood, and liked to go to Charwood market on a
Saturday. However, she was banned from using the local bus because of her
incontinence. Her solution to this was to hitchhike into Charwood. She had a
unique method of doing this, which consisted of lying in the middle of the road
with her voluminous dress over her head. When a concerned driver stopped to
investigate, she would leap up and ask for a lift into town.
When I look back at
what I have just written, it seems apparent to me that if a social services
department was confronted with this situation in the present day, Robina would
probably end up either being detained under the Mental Health Act, or being
placed in residential care using the Mental Capacity Act.
However, back then, it
seemed quite natural to tolerate this sort of behaviour, and although Charwood
SSD was involved with her, intervention was focused on keeping her in the
cottage in which she had lived for the previous 50 years, and she had a home
help who would keep an eye on her and ensure that she had regular meals.
Charwood SSD had a
number of clients, especially in the outlying villages, who could probably best
be described as eccentric, but who were generally tolerated within their
community. The main object of intervention was to preserve them in their own
homes for as long as was feasible.
“Hello, it’s Robina
here. I’ve just been to see Cyril. He’s awful ill. I don’t know what to do.”
Robina went on to tell me that Cyril lived in Charwood. He was an elderly man
who lived alone. I decided that I would have to go out and investigate. Robina
couldn’t be left to handle this on her own.
I found Cyril’s
address. It was at the end of a terrace of ancient cottages in the older part
of Charwood. The door wasn’t locked so I went straight in. It was like walking
into a Dickens novel. The cottage was quite literally a “2 up, 2 down”. The
front door opened directly into what might have been a living room, except that
it had no furniture. The only things in the room was a wooden stump with an
axe, and a pile of split logs. A rickety staircase led up from the corner of
the room.
I went through into
the next room, which was a kitchen/parlour. This contained a stone sink with a
cold tap above it. Beside it was the back door into the small garden. There was
an ancient Victorian kitchen range which appeared to provide the only source of
heating and cooking for the cottage. It had gone out, and the room was bitterly
cold. In a corner was a small table with a wooden chair on which Robina was
sitting.
It was very dim in the
room, but when I looked around for a light switch, I realised that Cyril had no
electricity in the house, and never had had. I could not even find a candle or
an oil lamp.
The only other
furniture in the room was a battered armchair in which Cyril was slumped. He
was only partially clothed. It was apparent to me from a single glance that he
was in a bad way. He appeared to be conscious, with his eyes staring, and was
breathing shallowly. However, he was quite unable to respond to any questions.
I looked around for
something to cover him up with. There was nothing in the kitchen, so I went
upstairs. There was no furniture at all in the landing bedroom. In what must be
Cyril’s bedroom there was only an old brass bedstead with a bare mattress,
which was piled high with old coats. I took one of the coats and attempted to
cover him up with it.
“Is he all right?”
Robina asked me.
“No, he isn’t, Robina.
I’ll call the doctor and get him to have a look at him. You wait here while I
go to a phone box.”
I went down to the
nearest phone box and rang the on call doctor, who was one of the surgery’s
GP’s. This was back in the days when GP practices covered their own patients
with a rota of GP’s attached to the practice. He said he’d come right out.
I returned to Cyril’s
house and told Robina what I had done. Then I waited for the GP, confident that
he would examine him and then probably arrange for an ambulance to admit him to
hospital.
The doctor arrived,
looking rather grumpy. He gave Cyril a very cursory examination, which did not
even appear to include checking his pulse, heart or temperature.
Then he stood up and
said to me, “There’s nothing much wrong with this chap. He just needs feeding
up in the local old people’s home.”
I was aghast. Cyril
was clearly immobile, and to my eyes appeared to have had a stroke or some
similar serious health crisis. No care home would have him in this condition. I
told the GP this.
“That’s not my
problem,” the GP replied when I pointed this out. “There are no hospital beds,
and he can’t stay here, can he? With that, he left.
“What’s going to
happen now?” Robina asked me.
“I don’t know, Robina.
I don’t know. I’m going to have to leave now and try and sort something out.
Can you keep an eye on him?”
This was way out of my
experience zone. I went to the local authority old people’s home in Charwood
and spoke to the manager. She confirmed that Cyril was in no condition to be
admitted to them. I used their phone to ring my own manager. She did her best
to reassure me, and said she make a few calls and get it sorted.
I waited at the home
for half an hour or so until my manager rang me back.
“I’ve spoken to a
doctor on the geriatric ward at Charwood
Hospital and he’s happy
to admit him. I’ve called an ambulance and they’ll be there any minute.”
Much relieved, I
returned to Cyril’s house.
Robina was still
sitting beside Cyril with his hand in hers.
“Hello, Robina, it’s
all sorted out. Cyril’s going to hospital. The ambulance will be here any
minute. How is he?”
She looked up at me.
“I think he’s dead,”
she said.
I had a close look at
Cyril. His eyes were staring sightlessly. He was not breathing. She was right.
The ambulance arrived.
The crew took one look
at Cyril.
“He’s dead,” one of
them said.
“I know that,” I
replied.
“He’s not one for us,”
he said. “I’ll call the police and let them know.” They left.
Everyone was leaving.
I went back to the
phone box and called the GP again.
“Oh, it’s you again,
is it?” he said. “What is it now?”
“You know that old man
who you said just needed feeding up in an old people’s home?”
“Yes, what about him?”
“Well, he’s dead.”
There was a brief
silence. Then: “Oh shit,” the doctor said. “I’ll come straight out.”
As the hearse crew
zipped Cyril into a body bag and carried him out to the hearse, I comforted
Robina, who was crying.
“He was a good friend,
Cyril was,” she said. Then she looked around the room, Spying a box of eggs on
the table, she took a few out of the box and put them into her shopping bag.
“Cyril won’t miss
these, will he?” she asked me.
“No, he won’t, Robina.
You may as well have them.”
She saw a pile of
split logs ready to go on the fire, and slipped a few of them into her shopping
bag too, with predictable results.
“Let me take you
home,” I said.
“A lift, oh good, with
such a nice young man,” Robina replied, and smiled at me.
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