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While some residents did have family, many did not. Those who did
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Chapter 5 Findings
often felt let down by their families or did not receive regular visits. This
affected their person-to-person interactions:
“A lot of the families you don’t see them from one year to the
next….. A lot of families are great at giving out but that’s guilt a lot
of the time I think.They should be in here you know participating
with us.”
(H01)
“Families have a history of leaving them in and letting them be
forgotten about.”
(S11)
“She just feels like they don’t bother, and I feel they don’t really.
She got all dressed up…”
(S08, talking about family who did not visit a resident on her
birthday)
Nurse participants described how some family members take their
relatives out of the research unit and also how others need
encouragement and support to do the same:
“Some families play quite a good role really because they come and
visit and they take them out on trips or bring them for a day or
whatever to get their hair done or bring them out to see the
chiropodist.”
(S14)
“Encouraging their relatives, I’m sure there’s great fear of taking
them home because they can’t manage but maybe they should be
offered to go out for an hour or two and spend time at home and
come back in.”
(S11)
“I think we should, well I suppose we’re reluctant to take him out
because he’s so immobile but even coming into the hospital last
week he was so much, you know, very interested and he was really
more alert and I thought ‘oh!’ and then I thought ‘oh, I might just
get a taxi to take him out to the prom for an hour’ just to have a
change of environment.”
(F04) (Barthel 2)