I made a mistake.
A mistake in thinking that Senior Care Assistant Pili Jose Francico Reubuen De Jesus, or Reubuen for short, has it easy at work because he only sees about five clients in his six day week, had the option and flexibility of working remotely, plus, how challenging could the task of providing personal care at home?
“Most of my clients have suffered from a stroke, leaving them unable to walk,” shared the 28-year-old before heading up to a client’s home on an early Sunday morning.
That was the case for 82-year-old Mr Tay. Bedridden and in need of a caregiver, Mr Tay had been the victim of two strokes and also suffers from violent dementia and Parkinson’s disease.
As Mr Tay goes to an eldercare centre during the week, Reubuen’s weekly visits on Sundays offers his daughter, his main caregiver, the crucial assistance she needs for Mr Tay’s basic care.
After gloving up and getting our aprons on, the first task of the day was getting Mr Tay freshened up. While removing his diaper proved simple enough, helping Mr Tay get up from bed-to-wheelchair-to-toilet proved to be a mix of power lifts and ginger manoeuvring.
From there, we had to repeat the lift-and-slide to get Mr Tay onto the toilet seat for his shower. Even then, we had to ensure that Mr Tay did not knock himself or lose balance while sitting.
Sweat beading on his forehead, Reubuen said: “Moving the patient around is one of the most difficult tasks of the job.”
Having now experienced it first-hand, I knew exactly what he meant.
Next up, we proceeded to help Mr Tay with some physical exercises. Slowly, but very steadily we stretched and activated Mr Tay’s stiff limbs with simple movements, careful to watch out for signs of discomfort.
Embarrassingly enough, any discomfort at all was my own. After some of these exercises, I could feel the onset of built-up fatigue – a little from the lifting, but mostly from standing tense and working with Mr Tay on the exercises while semi-bent over the bed.
Little wonder then that NTUC Health provides their staff with back braces for support.
At that point, I felt a humbling surge of respect for senior care assistants and caregivers for the work they do. The physical work is one thing, but having to bridge personal boundaries to assist in the most intimate care is truly remarkable.
Furthermore, for healthcare assistants like Reubuen, they often work this role alone. Depending also on the type of service arrangement, appointments can range from two to nine hours per visit, and may cover everything from nursing care to grocery shopping, even meal preparation.
My greatest takeaway from this brief experience is that, where we can, we should appreciate the people who devote themselves to making the lives of others better. What is easy to imagine is never as simple to execute. And from the bottom of my heart: “Thank you, Reubuen.”
NTUC HEALTH’S CARE@HOME
NTUC Health’s Care@home programme comes under an umbrella of timely, relevant, accessible, affordable and quality services to our working people, in line with their evolving needs.
Check out the infographic below for the full spectrum of NTUC’s healthcare-related services.
