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Carers' rigth to tourism participation

Carers' rigth to tourism participation
Author: Mira Kauppinen
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Abstract

Leisure activities and holiday taking has been today recognised as a 'necessary' part of people's lives, however the carers' situation on holiday taking is considerably more difficult. Even though, there are options available for carers those have been discovered to be either rather expensive or too daunting for the carer to organise, therefore there is an immediate need to develop new ways of helping the carers to go for a holiday.

Key words: carers, holiday, social right

Through the sleep I hear the door opening and all of sudden I am completely awake and rush out of my bed into the yard. It is 5 am and there in the dark mum is standing wearing only her robe and slippers. I walk towards her but she starts screaming: "who are you, don't come near me!" After a while talking to her I get her to calm down. Other hour goes by before getting her back to bed and I know that there is no point of going to bed anymore while in an hour I need to give mum a bath and breakfast. Keeping up with her routines is the only way to cope with her dementia. I collapse onto the sofa and feel myself extremely tired and depressed. I would love a holiday and a break from all this but I only need to think back the last time I had everything organised with all the visits of local authorities to assess what kind of help mum needs for respite care (care for the care recipient) and all the savings for paying respite and organising my own holiday and then two weeks before the journey, mum got a stroke and the whole journey was cancelled. It was totally depressing, while it had been something to look forward to and then all of sudden everything ended up so miserably!

Even though this story was a fictional story it is still a reality for approximately six million UK citizens who work as informal carers. Already informal carers provide more care and support than the National Health Service (NHS) in the UK. Informal carers are those who do not get paid for caring activities, care less than 35 hours per week on average, take care of person who is elderly, ill or disabled and who cannot manage without assistance. It has been estimated that the informal carers save from the society £87 billion annually.
The life quality of the carers has been discovered to alter to the worse since taking the carer responsibilities. The carers have been noticed to suffer from depression, illnesses and isolation; furthermore the carers have stated their holiday patterns having changed and decreased if not totally ended since started as carers. However, taking a break was noted to be one of the most important and craved activities to help the carers to cope with their responsibilities. Interestingly also 63% of the total UK population consider an annual holiday as a necessity!

The impediments of carers going on holiday have been discovered to be social (problem to get a respite for the care recipient, financial issues), physical (deterioration in health) and emotional obstacles (worry over the care recipient, loneliness, isolation, no-one to go for a holiday with). Keeping these impediments in mind there are basically four options for the carers to take a holiday. To organise a respite care through social service and local authorities, though usually the services are charged for and there are procedures which needs to go through before gaining the service. Organise the care by yourself, through private respite or organise a holiday also for the care recipient through specialised travel agency, these options are normally even more costly. It can be relied on the help of the family or relatives (if you have any and they are willing to help) or getting it organised by some Trust such as the Princess Royal Trust or Cross Road. The Trusts do not usually charge for their services but the waiting list can be relatively long. Carers state that it is fairly difficult to get information of the short break options available from them and it has been found out that 76% of carers do not receive any respite by social services and furthermore 36,5% were stated to be even unaware that they are entitled to breaks.
The informal carers' help for the society is priceless and still as a consequence of caring, the carers often experience ill health, discrimination and poverty. If even 'normal' people feel that holiday is a necessity at least once a year, why the carers would be anyhow an exception? Think of you in a position of described in the beginning of the paper. Would you like to live a life like that, without any prospect of relief? Even though there are options for carers to take a holiday but to arrange everything can be too stressful for the carers and the aspect of everything falling apart might be too daunting like in the previous story. This aspect is raised to the awareness of people so that society would recognise the need of hospitality professionals to generate new methods to reduce the worries of the carers and increase the carers' travel experience and possibilities so that also the carers' quality of life would be on the same level with other people. Carers doing so much for the sake of others is it organising a holiday annually for them the least we can do?

Bibliography

Gladwell N.J. & Bedini L.A. (2004) In search of lost leisure: the impact of caregiving on leisure travel, Tourism Management, Vol. 25 pp. 685-693

HM Government (2008) Carers at the heart of 21st-century families and communities, HM Government, Department of Health, available from: http://www.dh.gov.uk/en/Publicationsandstatistics/Publications/PublicationsPolicyAndGuidance/DH_085345 [access date: 3/5/2011]

Weightman G. (1999) A Real Break; A guidebook for good practice in the
provision of short-term breaks as a support for care in the community, Department of Health, NHS, available from: http://www.dh.gov.uk/en/Publicationsandstatistics/Publications/PublicationsPolicyAndGuidance/DH_4009312 [access date: 1/5/2011]

Important Internet sites

The Royal Princess Trust for Carers (2011) The Royal Princess Trust for Carers, available from: http://www.carers.org/ [access date:2/5/2011]

CrossRoads Care (2011) Cross Road Care Are The People Carers Turn To, CrossRoads Care, available from: http://www.crossroads.org.uk/ [access date: 1/5/2011]