From hiding mail to tying up an elderly person with dementia: according to the interest group MantelzorgNL, informal care can derail into domestic violence or elder abuse when informal caregivers are overloaded. MantelzorgNL wants healthcare professionals to be able to identify faster when things go wrong.
“Due to the increasing aging population in the Netherlands and staff shortages in care, more care is being placed on the shoulders of informal carers. This also increases the risk of overburdened and derailed informal care”, the association writes on the International Day against Elder Abuse.
If informal caregivers have to provide more care for a loved one than they can handle, undesirable situations may arise. According to MantelzorgNL, examples from practice range from hiding mail because it may make the care recipient restless, to tying the care user to a chair, “so that the person with dementia cannot cause accidents if he stays at home alone while the caregiver quickly does some shopping.” is doing”. It is also possible that the carer skips showers “because the cared for is so reluctant and the carer no longer has the energy for it”.
MantelzorgNL emphasizes that there is no question of malicious intent. Healthcare professionals must learn how to better identify derailments in order to prevent “ignorance and impotence”. The organization expects that the number of crisis admissions to mental health care and nursing homes will increase as a result of informal caregivers who are no longer able to cope with their tasks. According to the organization, if professionals better register the reason for such an admission, the problem can be better identified.
The Council for Public Health and Society (RVS) previously stated that healthcare professionals should collaborate more with informal caregivers. Without such a “fundamental turnaround” in the way care is organised, “the quality of care will quickly decline”, the council concluded in a report.