5.5 Proposed Solutions to Perceived Obstacles
5.5.3 Collaboration
The men aged 18-25 discussed adopting different, collaborative roles regarding care and support for those who are ill, recognising that those requiring care had many needs. They felt that each person should be trained in their area of interest – this was not necessarily limited to the currently accepted activities of caregiving.
“You can‟t just train people who themselves don‟t know their area of interest. If I want to help the community I have to know exactly what I want to do for them and then acquire those skills. For instance there must be a fitness trainer, a
nutritionist, a counselor, and each ones knows that they have their own area of speciality. Not that the same person will come with the same kind of help that doesn‟t cover much, no! A person who is sick needs different kinds of care and help.”
Respondent 6 Focus Group 1, Men 18-25 years
The men in this focus group also spoke about physically exercising with the person who is ill, to keep them fit and healthy – through activities such as lifting weights (dumbbells), or walking. The women aged 26-45 mentioned the same idea.
The women aged 18-25 were similar to the men of the same age group in that they spoke about adopting different roles so that care and support became a collaborative effort. Similar findings were noted by Linsk & Pointdexter (2000), who stated that younger people seem to prefer to see themselves as ongoing contributors towards care, thus making it a collaborative effort, rather than adopting roles of primary caregivers. The women aged 18-25, however, differed from the men of the same age group, in that they spoke about getting together and forming an organization, through which they could work together to provide care and support. This idea was repeated in the focus group of women aged aged 26- 45, however the latter spoke about adopting different roles within organizations as applied to dividing into teams and organizing resources to assist in care. These women however spoke more about aspects currently associated with caregiving such as cleaning, administering medication, talking and motivating. Such care would be organized and done with consideration to what other women were doing.
“I think umm…okay because we will be in groups, right? There should be people in subgroups, there should be those who will change nappies, administer pills and motivational speakers because not all of us are the same some can change
nappies and others can clean and stuff. So it‟s better that we are grouped, because I can‟t go and change someone‟s nappies and we are not all the same emotionally, because even seeing a sick person is just too much for me, so I‟d rather be a supervisor.”
Respondent 5 Focus Group 2, Women 18-25 years
However, the women aged 18-25 spoke more about becoming involved with the ill person themselves, whereas the women aged 26-45, although mentioning care and support, focussed more on the logistics and arranging sources and such.
“I think that it works much better, like say for example we‟re a group and there‟s ten of us, we could have a group, like subdivide, have a group of three, a group of three, a group of four, some group goes to the school, some group goes to ask for donations from Shoprite or wherever and maybe have something that we can be identified with, like sort of a, like something that makes us uniform, but that we do different tasks so that we can accomplish more.”
Respondent 6 Focus Group 3, Women 26-45 years
It is interesting to note that although the women in the above-mentioned two focus groups had earlier in discussions spoken about care and support being about unconditional love, and visiting and speaking to the person who is ill to show him/her that s/he is still accepted, when questioned about their own contributions to care and support they almost exclusively talked about doing something tangible or concrete. Although all groups spoke about showing love through activities such as visiting and talking, bathing, helping, cooking, the women appeared to focus more than the men on physical aspects of care.
All women in all focus groups spoke about being prepared to assist in physical care; cleaning and bathing the ill person, and in cleaning the home and cooking if necessary.
“Yes, you clean the person, you bath, you give person food, if the person couldn‟t stand maybe you cook the porridge. Maybe you change the person her night dress, change her sheets and wash them, maybe sometimes if you get there and find out that indeed this person does not have anybody, you need to do the washing. If you can even the blankets must be washed and take the person outside for fresh air and also the floors. Wipe the floors.”
Respondent [unknown]
Focus Group 5, Women 46 and older
The men aged 46 and older also expressed being willing to bathe and clean a person who is ill, although they felt that women who were ill may not be comfortable with them, as men, in that regard.