WARWICK SMITH/Stuff
Eric Clarke lives alone, requiring daily assistance with his personal care and hygiene. He says the support he receives is often inadequate, and having to constantly explain his needs is demeaning.
An elderly man feels so let down by the scattershot state of his in-home care, he wants to give back the Queen’s Service Medal he once received for services to health. Twice a day Eric Clarke, 87, opens the front door of his Feilding home to carers. They see him at his most vulnerable, as the treatment he needs is intimate. But too often they are strangers, and too often they are careless, leaving Clarke anxious, angry and humiliated, and twice in need of an ambulance.