Siobhan McEniff is a Carers Development Officer with the Older Persons' Service HSE and is co-author of a report on carers of elderly relatives
I work with about 300 carers in Sligo, Leitrim and west Cavan who are looking after vulnerable older people.
I spend a lot of time on the telephone. Unfortunately, I get cases at a very late stage - some people are burnt out and in need of emergency respite care. A lot of people do not know I am here.
Some carers regard it as their duty to care for their parents and feel they are failing in some way if they ask for help. They do not see themselves as carers.
I tell them about all the supports that are available and advise them to contact their public health nurse and check their eligibility for the carers' allowance.
Someone, for example, who never leaves the house apart from taking mother for a drive may not know that there are funds available to get the car adapted if the need arises. There are hoists and hospital beds available - nobody should have to do heavy lifting.
I do a mini assessment on the phone. Sometimes carers are already isolated. Carers who spend 24 hours looking after a parent often cannot talk about anything else and friends get tired of this unless they are carers themselves.
I try to encourage them to get out of the house. That can be a massive step not only because of the practical difficulties but because they have lost all self esteem. They have to be encouraged. But it's amazing to see what a night out even for a few hours does for them.
I have heard carers say the only way out is for the person they are caring for to die.
The coping skills of the carer are very important. Some people access all the available supports but some carry all the burden and perceive the rest of the family as being uninterested, even when this is not the case.
Sometimes in rural communities it is assumed that the house and land will go to a certain person so it is their role to care for the parent. It used to be that the oldest child would stay on in the home but now it tends to be the one who got on best with mother or father.
Part of my job is to encourage carers to communicate with the rest of the family. Families are very complex and the solution is often individual to each family.
My job was created four years ago after detailed research on the needs of carers in this region. There are two of us in the north west and five in the country. There are 10,000 carers in the north west.
I feel very strongly that as well as dealing with the day-to-day needs of carers, my job is to be an advocate for them. Carers' work is invisible. A national as well as a local strategy is needed.
The means test for the carers' allowance should be scrapped. Believe me, carers are not well-off people.
Most carers get no training but what they achieve is wonderful. I visit a woman with Alzheimer's who is 85 and she sits there immaculate in her make-up with her scarf and brooch, all thanks to the care of her daughter who could be up twice during the night. That lady could not get that quality of care anywhere else. She is confused but she is very happy.
There are home respite care grants available from the HSE so people like that daughter can get away for a week or get a few hours off each week. They can get someone into the house, someone the mother or father knows and trusts. When people with dementia go into hospital they tend to get more confused.
Two-thirds of carers are women, but in Leitrim men buck the trend and it is closer to 50:50, possibly because there are more single men in the county who ended up caring for Mammy at home.
We have to help carers to do what they do. This touches all families. One-third of us will at some stage end up as a carer.
Siobhan McEniff can be contacted at 071- 914 2606 or 087 908 0832.
(In conversation with Marese McDonagh.)