Camden New Journal - Letters: Vulnerable suffer

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Camden New Journal - Letters to the Editor
Published: 22 November 2007

Who cares how the old and vulnerable suffer?

• THE meeting we had at Queen’s Crescent Community Centre last week about care for the elderly in Camden highlighted just how disproportionately they are affected by the council’s money saving efforts.
Not only are they penalised by extra charges for their home care and probably extra charges for meals on wheels – they are also at the mercy of staff in repairs call centres who have no local knowledge and do not discriminate between them and other residents. The elderly are now being advised to go to charities to get small repairs done.
If the caretaking service to council tenants is privatised, they will suffer even more – at the mercy of private contractors – who do the minimum their contract says and will not look out for them in their homes.
On top of that when the elderly are unable to live in their own home, they are now being told that they should leave the borough, because there are not enough sheltered homes or residential care places.
There do not seem to be any plans on the table at the moment to increase capacity and no one seems to have made a projection of how many will be needed in the next 10 years.
As someone at the meeting said, Camden under Labour used fundamentally to be a caring borough, but now those in control don’t seem to care about anything except to throw in our faces that cheaper is better.
It was a shame that none of our local Liberal Democrat or Tory councillors came to the meeting to hear the concerns of local residents and answer some of the questions we all put. In the event the meeting passed a unanimous motion of no confidence in the council “because of their lack of care of the elderly and the vulnerable in the borough and because they are not listening to the people who voted for them and providing them with relevant information which affects their everyday lives.”
SALLY GIMSON
Oak Village, NW5

Send your letters to: The Letters Editor, Camden New Journal, 40 Camden Road, London, NW1 9DR or email to letters@camdennewjournal.co.uk. The deadline for letters is midday Tuesday. The editor regrets that anonymous letters cannot be published, although names and addresses can be withheld. Please include a full name, postal address and telephone number. Letters may be edited for reasons of space.

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