Dire need for helpers

Wheel Power

Thursday September 12, 2013

Dire need for helpers

Illegal foreign workers can perhaps be trained to work as personal care assistants for the disabled.

LAST week’s announcement by Putrajaya that some illegal foreign workers may be legalised instead of being deported, caught my attention.

This change of heart by the Government apparently came about after the authorities realised there is a need for some of these immigrants after their employers made a special appeal for them.

After reading about it in the newspapers, a thought came to me: what about getting them – and local workers, too – to work as Personal Care Assistants (PCA) for the disabled?

PCAs are specially trained workers who offer home care and support services for the disabled or chronically ill. Unlike regular caregivers of the disabled who often comprise family members and close friends, PCAs are paid by the Government to help disabled persons with their daily activities.

The target group of PCAs are people with profound disabilities who are paralysed from the neck down.

PCAs help with daily activities such as giving disabled persons a bath, helping them to eat, preparing meals and cleaning their homes. They are also trained to provide basic rehabilitation assistance for individuals who have had surgery or who have been ill.

PCAs also offer their services to patients with physical impairments in private homes or nursing care facilities. They do not require a high level of healthcare knowledge or training. However, it is advantageous that they have a high level of manual dexterity and good communication skills.

The range of services PCAs can offer is limitless. They include helping a person to get out of bed, bathe, dress and groom himself.

Other services include checking a patient’s pulse rate, temperature and respiration rate, and helping him to carry out simple exercises prescribed by a healthcare expert.

Disabled patients also need assistance in taking their medication, dressing wounds daily and getting in and out of wheelchairs.

PCAs may work exclusively with one client, or have a number of clients in a nursing home. The demand for PCA services is expected to rise sharply in the near future as we move into an ageing society.

Disabled activist Chong Tuck Meng, 51, a tetraplegic, strongly feels that Malaysia should start looking into making PCAs available for the handicapped.

“I need help to sit up in bed everyday. I need to be turned every four hours to avoid pressure sores.”

Chong describes his daily struggles as a nightmare. He has to cope without the help of his ageing mother and his wife who needs to work to support him.

“I often wake up in the morning, amazed that I am still alive,” says Chong. He adds that no disabled person deserves to go through this.

“I have to find friends who are willing and have the time to take me out. Sometimes, out of desperation, I have to turn to illegal immigrants for personal assistance.”

Chong says it is high time the Government addressed the much needed role of PCAs in the country, “otherwise growing older with disability is a virtual death sentence for the disabled”. He feels it is timely to raise this issue in the upcoming Budget 2014.

Chong knows a number of tetraplegics in the country who are in urgent need of PCAs.

“One of them is a third year university student who became paralysed after an accident. The son of a chicken rice seller, the family’s hopes were dashed when he became disabled. They tried getting maids but many ran away, leaving him without help at home. He slipped into depression.”

Another of Chong’s pals became disabled as a teenager. His family couldn’t afford a maid. Although his 60-year-old mother did everything she could, including going out to work to support the family, his pal finally succumbed to pressure sore infections which are preventable.