Most home carers can cope, but some are unhappy with their lives

Photo: Depositphotos.com
Photo: Depositphotos.com

Almost three-quarters of family carers say they can combine their job with care duties easily, until their relative needs more intensive help, according to research by the government’s socio-cultural think-tank SCP.

Once the friend or relative needs to spend more than eight hours a week on care duties, the pressure mounts up and it becomes more difficult to work as well, the SCP survey found.

Almost two million people in the Netherlands act as carers as well as doing a job, but over 400,000 of them provide at least 21 hours of care a week.

One in five people providing intensive help say they are unhappy with their own lives. At the same time, half of them say there is no-one else available to help out and they feel that they have to step in.

One in three working women and one in five working men combine work with care duties, the survey found.

In 2014, the government of the day introduced a new strategy to cut home care costs. Ministers said they hoped that by transferring responsibility for home care services to councils and slashing budgets by 40% that families, friends and neighbours would clean and shop for the frail elderly and handicapped instead.

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