The financial and psychological situation of companions

The finan­cial and psy­cho­lo­gi­cal situa­tion of care­gi­vers: pro­gress remains to be made. To begin with, what about the finan­cial situa­tion of the care­gi­vers? In the context of a fami­ly where one per­son is suf­fe­ring from can­cer, it is very frequent that seve­ral people, and often only one per­son, will become a care­gi­ver. Howe­ver, this new care­gi­ver has a pro­fes­sio­nal acti­vi­ty. In a couple, if the spouse becomes ill, the other per­son can find him­self from one day to the next having to learn, without any medi­cal trai­ning or psy­cho­lo­gi­cal sup­port, how to become a care­gi­ver. And moreo­ver, while conti­nuing to exer­cise his pro­fes­sio­nal acti­vi­ty. Indeed, it is very com­mon for the care­gi­ver to conti­nue wor­king, because the cou­ple’s income will essen­tial­ly rest on his or her shoul­ders. And this, even if the sick per­son will still receive a part of his sala­ry. This is often not enough, and a second sala­ry is neces­sa­ry. Facts and figures to remem­ber: Accor­ding to a stu­dy conduc­ted by the Socie­tal Obser­va­to­ry of Can­cer in 2016, 5 mil­lion French people decla­red to help sup­port a close per­son with can­cer. Of which among them, 10% (i.e. 500,000 people) to be the sole caregivers.Various stu­dies prove that sup­port “signi­fi­cant­ly improves the sur­vi­val of people with can­cer”. Howe­ver, we rea­lize that the care­gi­ver is often left behind, which is a very serious injus­tice. For more infor­ma­tion, here is a very inter­es­ting article: https://www.ligue-cancer.net/vivre/article/37632_les-aidants-ces-combattants-tres-discrets Howe­ver, there are finan­cial aids in the form of allo­wances or leaves gran­ted to sup­port the carers. But in rea­li­ty, what hap­pens to them if the can­cer is pro­lon­ged? Now let’s look at the psy­cho­lo­gi­cal situa­tion of the care­gi­vers: It is total­ly alie­na­ting for a per­son who had a pro­fes­sio­nal acti­vi­ty, a social life to see him­self from one day to the next to be the per­son on whom a lot of pres­sure res­ts. Psy­cho­lo­gi­cal sup­port is neces­sa­ry as well as free trai­ning on first aid for example. And final­ly, without betraying medi­cal secre­cy, the atten­ding phy­si­cian should be able to give the accom­pa­nying per­son very use­ful infor­ma­tion. In fact, there is a topic dedi­ca­ted to care­gi­vers on the LEVA forum: https://levalab.com/community/accompagnants/ There is still a lot to be done to sup­port these cou­ra­geous people, who show a lot of resilience.