Madam,

I would like to continue the debate on the proposed closure of the Bodlondeb Nursing Home by expressing my horror and disgust at learning of the proposal by Ceredigion County Council.

I have been the sole carer for my husband for five years since his diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease in 2012 and I have managed without any help at all until recently.

I and every other carer of an Alzheimer’s sufferer knows what the end will be and it makes me shudder to think that, when I can no longer cope and help is needed, that my husband of 55 years will have to be placed in a home so far away from me that I would probably only be able to visit once a week.

If there is no care for him in Aberystwyth, I would have to get a bus (when there is one) to Aberystwyth, another bus to Cardigan and then three miles further on to find the home or perhaps a train to Welshpool or Shrewsbury and return! Elderly people having to make a journey of this length to see their loved one is not acceptable. We have spent our lives together and surely we have a right to see one another without journeys of 100 miles or more!

It is indeed a fact that most of the residential homes in Aberystwyth do accept Alzheimer’s patients. In fact, I saw in last week’s Cambrian News a large advertisement by Hafan y Waun stating their care for dementia.

Is it not also a fact than when the patient deteriorates into needing nursing or specialised care the family is required to remove the patient from their local care home to find a registered dementia home far afield?

Can Ceredigion County Council not imagine what this feels like to an elderly person who has mental problems or a severe illness who has been settled in a home for perhaps several years, who then is removed to a strange place where it is going to be even harder for their family to come and see them regularly.

Shameful and heartless are the only words I can find to use!

Come on Ceredigion County Council, you were able to find £2m to pay Price Waterhouse Cooper to recommend cuts to our services. Perhaps it is now time you found not that much more to convert Bodlondeb into a care home with full registration for all services and illnesses, whether it be dementia or diabetes.

Yours etc,

Mavis Birch, Pontrhydygroes, Ystrad Meurig.

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