Honor Us Every Day
Friday was National Caregivers Day. We need to support family caregivers every day.
On the third Friday in February, we honor family caregivers and professional caregivers. We show our support all over social media with gratitudes and images of thanks.
In truth, we need to do much more for family caregivers, the largest workforce in the health care system. Consider:
5,564: Total number of hospitals
897,961: Total number of hospital beds
809,845: Total number of physicians
2.9 million: Total number of home health aides
2.9 million: Total number of RNs
65.7 million and growing: Number of individuals caring for a family member
Yet, we don’t have a national program that supports and trains all family caregivers. We have a program that supports some family caregivers of persons ages 60 years and over. But we don’t have a program that supports anyone in a personal caregiving experience, regardless of their age, their caree’s age and their caree’s diagnosis.
In our homes, we just figure it out.
In our communities, we need to do better. I’ve recently been sharing reflections of the caregiving experience, comparing comments from family caregivers in 1995 to those of family caregivers today. The experience seems much harder today, even though we had decades to prepare for this moment in time, when we knew demographics would point to an aging society and our lifestyle would create a diabetes epidemic.
We need to figure this out. We need to a program that trains, supports, reimburses and provides benefits to family caregivers. When we take care of family caregivers today, we help them arrive into their own future in the best shape possible. Without an effective intervention, the caregiving crisis of today could be the health care catastrophe of tomorrow.
Consider our stress during our caregiving experience. According to my ongoing stress survey, family caregivers rate their stress at 4.13 on a scale of 1 to 5, with 5 being the most stressed. We know stress steals our good health. “Over time, continued strain on your body from stress may contribute to serious health problems, such as heart disease, high blood pressure, diabetes, and other illnesses, including mental disorders such as depression or anxiety,” according to the National Institute of Mental Health.
Imaging 60 million individuals arriving into the future with heart disease and diabetes. How will our health care system care for them? Who will care for them?
Investing in the well-being of family caregivers saves the health care system today because we make better use of the system. With more help and support, we can avoid unnecessary hospitalizations and Emergency Room visits for our carees. We can continue to work which means we can continue to contribute to our retirement and to Social Security. We can spend time each day relaxing because we know we’re not alone in managing our caree’s complex care. We can find time for food prep and exercise so we can enjoy better health.
Investing in the well-being of family caregivers today will save the health care system tomorrow because we arrive into our future in better shape, physically, emotionally and financially.
Let’s turn National Caregivers Day into a National Caregiving Program. If you’re up to helping making this a reality, post a comment below. We’d love your help in turning a day into a life-changing program.