Care Home is an institution where special care is provided to people with particular problems or special needs. In our present times, we are well aware of Care homes but it is more than what we can imagine or think. It’s a home for the homeless and helpless. There are many obstacles that a care home faces. The important obstacles that a care home faces include the problem of funding, arranging the daily routine of residents, employment, etc. As per Prabhdyal Singh Sodhi, most people are left in a care home unwillingly, demotivation to live is one of the most common obstacles that a care home faces.
Prabhdyal Singh Sodhi former Director of Abbey Healthcare elucidated some of the ways how such problems can be overcome:
Ø Funding Programs:
Nobody can survive on empty pockets let alone be healthy. It’s mostly the responsibility of the resident’s family to provide the care home with the required fund but often they do not do so and thus the care home fails to provide proper amenities to the residents.
Therefore, care homes should not solely depend on the funds provided by residents side for their survival. Various fundraising activities like selling handcrafts, arranging plays, dramas, making envelopes, etc. The residents can be pushed towards doing something productive and that product can be used to earn the necessary funding. Other than these, when any family sends their people, to a care home they should be made to sign a legal contract that will charge them for the necessary funding. Also, care homes can have various presentations and acknowledgment programs to attract donations. Such donations can be a very good source of survival.
Ø Recruitment of staff:
Working at an acre home means nothing but taking care of people with your heart and soul. Many people find it boring and worthless therefore they don’t want to work in a care home. But a care home cannot run without having anyone to do the caring activities.
At times when care homes employ people who don’t want the job and other times care homes do not have enough funding to recruit. The problem of funding can be solved in ways that are mentioned above and for the problem of people not willing to work at a care home, various methods can be used. The methods are:-
>Not willing to recruit people with high-end education like PhD.
>Promoting recruitment by putting on banners and using social media.
>Giving incentives
>Distributing work
> Giving respect and required help to the workers
>Treating everyone equally, etc
Ø Efficient Arrangement of work:
Once the problem of employment is solved the next problem is how to effectively distribute and arrange the work owing to the fact that every individual is different with different problems. In such a situation it is better to list down every individual’s problem and requirement.
After listing down, some kind of similarity or pattern can be seen in the works to be done. In the case of residents having similar requirements like everyday bathing, simultaneous turn-taking can be used. In case there is a pattern like someone needs to be fed while someone needs to be given an inhaler, different people can be assigned different responsibilities. Other than these everyone should get involved in some kind of co-curricular activities which will not only keep the patients engaged but also the employees will be entertained like having a movie day a week or playgroup games which will be healthy.
Ø Inducing a homely atmosphere:
The basic characteristic of being human arises from the fact that we feel various emotions like hunger, danger, love, anger, etc. Its emotion keeps us working for everything we do. Thus at care homes even if people are given the best care available, without the emotional attachment they want all other efforts are in vain.
Most people either give up or are just soulless bodies out there thus not fulfilling the true purpose of care homes. Everyone we are connected with via blood is family but everyone we connect with via heart is also family and at times it’s often proved that relations of the heart are more reachable than those of blood. Prabhdyal Singh Sodhi former Director of Abbey Healthcare believes that if a family-like environment can be preached in a care home people residing there can feel like a family. The care home will truly have a homely vibe for both residents and employees because home is where family is.
Lastly, there are many other problems that a care home may face but there is always a solution to every problem. We may need to just take a pause, cool down, and think it through because where there is a way there is a will.
