Couple struggling to cope with illness

A DEVOTED son has voiced his concern over the treatment of his ill mother.

The Observer has already highlighted Rother council's struggle to provide cash allowing the disabled to continue living at home.

The grants are mandatory, but the money is just not there for many who apply for help to maintain their quality of life.

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Now Chris Holland is worried about his parents coping with her debilitating illness and feels social services are not fulfilling promises because of lack of funding.

He told of the difficult life now faced by his parents, Jane and Roland Holland, who live in Gloucester Avenue.

"Mum has got a neurological complaint which means she is paraplegic and in a wheelchair full-time now.

"She has little movement in her arms and legs and needs two carers in the morning, two at lunchtime and two in the evening.

"She has no mobility at all."

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"She keeps having these micro strokes, which will just knock her out for several days before she regains ability.

"On some occasions she is able to feed, and on other occasions she requires help."

"Mum is only 55. This is a neurological complaint which came out, they think, of a bout of meningitis or something like that.

"It has completely incapacitated her."

"Only a few years ago she was roller-skating down the sea-front at Bexhill with her grandchildren.

"Now she can't do anything."

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"This has impacted on everyone's lives, particularly my dad. It caused her to have deep depression and my dad went down-hill.

"He has got cellulitis now and other skin conditions as a result of stress and depression."

Chris admitted social services have been helpful in some respects but said that two years ago promises were made to make dramatic changes to the living environment and to give Jane better quality of life.

"They decided to spend the money on her, but each time they come to it, they haven't got the funds."

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He added: "The biggest impact is that mum and dad can't now sleep in the same room. She is on a hospital bed in the room where they used to have the marital bed.

"Social services were going to move the wall so they could still sleep together. That is where the money ran out. This is mum and dad's biggest thing. They have been married for 38 years and always been together ... then suddenly they can't be."

Jane and Roland have been waiting for a hoist to be installed in their Glyne Gap bungalow, as well as other alterations enabling them to continue their life together.

Jane said: "The most annoying thing about all this is they made us get rid of our double bed in preparation for this hoist.

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"After 38 years of marriage, he is now in a separate room from me. I am ill in the night, and Roland is sometimes, and neither of us can get to the other.

"I need to know he is alright and he needs to know I am alright. It is impossible."

Earlier this year the Observer highlighted Rother District Council's struggle to find more cash to help the disabled live at home.

Janet Gearing of Moat - the group which organises grants for the disabled - said:

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"I have a lot of sympathy for them, and other clients in that position but the local authority just doesn't have enough money to fund the amount of grants that are coming in.

""Rother has tried its hardest and gone to the government to see if they could get extra money, and were turned down."

The total Disabled Facilities Grants allocation for 2005-2006 is 400,000.

"In previous years it hasn't been spent because there hasn't been that demand for it, but in this particular year there have been more referrals going through and demand has really increased."

"They just don't have the money for all the DFGs coming through."

"There is going to be the same problem next year," she added.

"It is hard. It is lack of money. I do feel for these people."