Thank heaven for angels of mercy

SOUTH Australia's angels of mercy are plugging gaps in the welfare system with meat pies, Weet-Bix and their own clothing.

As a growing group of ageing, isolated and ill people fall through the cracks, Royal District Nursing Service staff are dipping into their own pockets for food, medicine and essential bills.

The reason is simple - after house calls to give medical care, the nurses cannot bear to leave ill clients knowing there is no food in the fridge, no power for heat and no money to fill prescriptions.

Officials believe the situation is likely to worsen as a growing group of isolated older people loses touch with the community.

Many of the 300 nurses who go into homes have been buying clients food and medicine quietly for years, as an extra dimension of care in their calling. The situations they have found have reduced some to tears. Such as:

• THE dying 10-year-old boy whose mother couldn't afford the apple juice he wanted until pension day.
• THE single father on a disability pension unable to afford stockings to aid healing of leg ulcers.
• THE elderly client with no family, unable to afford a heater for winter.
• THE dying man who could not afford medicine to make his final days at home more bearable.

In some cases it has been as simple as buying a hungry, sick pensioner a meat pie; in others it has meant footing the bill for essential medicine such as insulin or paying power bills.

As well as buying stop-gap bread and milk, nurses have bought heaters and refrigerators for clients as each day they walk into hidden human crises.

The RDNS nurses visit 4000 clients a month, including 1000 new admissions (replacing 1000 discharges), giving them a vivid insight into the margins of society.

While many clients are elderly, the nurses also have used their own cash to help struggling families and disabled singles facing immediate extreme hardship.

Ruth Stephenson-Ward is one such worker, a nurse of 27 years' experience including eight with RDNS. She has gone into many homes where she simply could not leave without helping.

Often she has referred clients to other community services for longer-term help, but many times she has felt compelled to take on-the-spot action.

"There was one elderly lady who needed nursing care and she had no food in the fridge and obviously had not eaten for a while," Ruth said. "I gave her some money and she literally ran past me to get to the shop to buy a pie. It breaks your heart sometimes."

It now is a running joke among RDNS nurses that they can tell when they are treating Ruth's past clients. Many wear clothing - marked with her family name - she has donated.

Ruth is one of the RDNS angels of mercy who decided it was time for a more concerted effort to deal with these emergencies.

She is the driving force behind the RDNS Breathing Space program, which won a $10,000 grant from the RDNS Foundation Board. In a show of goodwill, a significant portion of the 300 RDNS field nurses and 100 support staff have matched the grant with regular salary deductions of up to $20 per pay.

Staff also have donated clothing, furniture and other goods, made lump sum donations, and passed on $50 food vouchers won as a staff incentive.

It has been a spontaneous gesture of humanity by those at the coalface of social breakdown.

In the past eight months Breathing Space has helped almost 100 people in dire need of immediate help and is assisting about 10 a month. No cash is given and people are helped only on a one-off basis, then are referred to other agencies.

"You never know what you are going to see when you go into peoples' homes," Ruth said.

"There are lots of elderly people living alone with no one to keep an eye on them.

"It is a case of hidden people just falling through the cracks - I just couldn't walk away.

"A lot say they don't want charity; we say we are just giving them some breathing space to get back on their feet.

"Even small, unexpected bills can really knock people around when they are on a very tight budget. Some people have no food in the fridge; others don't have a fridge."

Breathing Space spends $100 to $200 on most clients, but has spent up to $400. RDNS chief executive Bill Taylor said there are many reasons people may be in financial trouble.

"By nature our clients are sick people and that brings its own extra financial strain," he said.

"Many are on the pension, and the pension is designed for healthy people - if you are on multiple medications the extra expenses mount up.

"We've had diabetics who can't afford their insulin. Many are elderly and isolated - our nurses go into situations that are hard to believe."

Mr Taylor said the program is not moving into areas handled by other agencies; it gives on-the-spot aid in urgent situations then calls on other agencies.

He said it was no single governments' fault; factors behind individual hardships could be complex. In some cases it could be the cost of illness, in others it might be poor financial choices or mental health.

One refugee family with four children had no food, but the father proudly told their RDNS nurse they paid all their bills.

"They did not want to be dishonoured by being a burden on the community which had given them a new life by not paying bills," Ruth said.

Refrigerators have been a big item - the RDNS regularly comes across cases where elderly people are living out of portable coolers because they have no fridge or cannot afford to fix one that has broken.

Ruth has noticed a pattern in many cases where people they have helped over a financial `bump' are able to get on with their lives.

One such case is Tarena Boyle, 24, a disability pensioner who found an unexpectedly high medical bill left her in deep trouble.

"The RDNS had been coming to help my with medical problems and when this happened they were the ones who helped me get over an enormous financial hurdle," she said.

"I need a lot of medication and this bill just knocked me.

"They paid it and got me over the bump - it was a tremendous help in a really rough time."

Craig Mildred, 43, is another who has benefited, with RDNS first helping with a fridge. Grappling with multiple disabilities, Craig, 43, was depressed until his nurse and her husband took him to a sailing club where he found a natural ability.

Breathing Space has since paid $113 for therapeutic sailing lessons. "They've changed my life - they have made such a big difference to me and given me new enthusiasm for life," he said.

Call 1300 364 264 for details on how to support the RDNS Foundation

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