Giving Compass' Take:

• David Mattin at Medium discusses the importance of care work and ensuring our elderly are taken care of through different ways such as reshaping healthcare to new trends in technology.

• How might restructuring our healthcare system to prioritize the importance of elder care also bring relief to other areas? How will care work impact our economy? 

• Here's an article on human services' critical role in improving health care. 

For the last four years of her life, my grandmother lived in a state-funded care home.

This was back in the early 2000s. I was at university, and I’d visit her during the holidays. The home was a low-rise brick building on a quiet road. It was in the same ordinary town just outside London that my grandmother had lived in before we (mainly my mother) had become unable to look after her ourselves.

The staff was made up entirely of nurses who had recently arrived in the UK, mostly from Asia. They were good-humored, selfless, and dedicated to a job that involved helping other people’s elderly relatives use the bathroom.

We have never lived in societies where millions of young and able-bodied people have no perceived social or economic value.

They did their best with the place. And fought a daily battle against minimal resources. But everyone could see it wasn’t great.

Read the full article on the importance of care work by David Mattin at Medium.