Thought for the Day, 18 January 2007

The Rev. Joel Edwards

Putting someone 'in a home' used to be an easy thing for me to say. Now I can barely get the words out. Because two months ago we did just that to my 95 year old mother.

We saw it coming for some time but it was still a bitter choice to make. There are 4 of us as siblings but none of us were able to shoe-horn her particular needs into our particular situations. It doesn't matter if we say words like 'residential home' or 'caring centre' or 'supportive housing' it can still feel like a treacherous betrayal.

Handing over a parent, partner or friend to someone else's care is frightening.

So all my guilt-gongs went off yesterday when I heard that the Healthcare Commission were investigating cases of abuse against people with learning disabilities in residential care. It wasn't just my mother: my wife works with people with learning disability.

Yesterday also, a senior doctor unveiled evidence of 'distressing complications' for some elderly patients in the NHS. She first stumbled on this evidence, not a consultant, but as a visiting relative.

In our increasingly defensive culture it's hard to know where blame stops and accountability begins. But the Healthcare Commission said that the widespread abuse was due to a lack of training, awareness and leadership, exacerbated by low morale.

But it's not just the Health Service. Something else is going missing from our society. It's the profound belief that people are to be respected not only because of their age or vulnerability but because they are made in the image of God.

As the medical scientist Gareth Jones puts it, 'Whenever confronted by another human being,' he says, 'we are in the presence of images of God, who makes claims on us.'

To share together in God's image is our most stupendous privilege and our greatest responsibility; because that shared image obliges us to respect and care for everyone - especially those who are vulnerable.

In one way or another, we are always giving our relatives away to be cared for, or nurtured by others.

But if we can walk out of a hospital, school or nursing home confident that the people to whom we entrust our loved ones really believe that they are mysteriously made like God, then vulnerable people will become safer in other people's hands.