Mk Executive Care, an organization set up for caring for the aged has been launched in Nigeria after several years of successful operation in the United Kingdom.
Isaac Josiah Ukeleghe, Director, MK executive Care while speaking to Journalists after the launch of the outfit said the idea was borne out of the desire to ensure senior citizens do not suffer and are well catered for. “Senior citizens after paying their dues to the society and their families need to be supported when they can no longer care for themselves”, Ukeleghe added.
The model of the outfit is not an home for the elderly but provides trained caregivers for clients who subscribe for the service. “It is a situation where interested persons would consult us for the services and we study their cases and provide the most suitable caregiver to work with them. It could be someone who would work for four hours, eight hours, twelve hours, few days in the week or a live-in caregiver depending on the client’s choice. Clients could also make their choices about the type of caregiver they want,” he explained.
In selecting the caregivers that would be trained before being deployed to different homes, Ukeleghe mentioned that proper scrutiny is being done before employing a care giver. Beyond getting contact details of the applicant’s relatives, address and visitation to house, the outfit also engage the Police to ensure background checks are conducted.
Ukeleghe said, “We are doing some police checks but they are not as detailed and as comprehensive as what we have in the UK. However we are trying to refine our system on the context of where we operate because we know we need to refine it and training is also very important. So we need to train our workers.
“Not just about employing the person but training them to buy into the vision of the organisation. And hopefully with the check we have in place, for instance when we send someone to a place we would regularly be checking on that person. We do a spot check, we regularly check without announcing we were coming and we regularly phone our clients to see whether they are happy,” he explained.
He mentioned that some challenges that have been identified are being worked on, “we have envisaged some challenges and we are working ahead too. The very first one is the culture change. In my case we almost thought that our people do not need the service, we always say that the family support is always there.
“What we forget is that when we bring civilization in, we want to push our children to go out and get greener pasture, our children can no longer be with us again and there is a vacuum and someone needs to fill that vacuum so that culture change is there and we need to fine-tune our minds to know that, that old time is gone when you think the family is there.”
To ensure that proper monitoring is done, MK Executive care has “CCTV in the office and we want to have a system where we can install CCTV in the homes of our clients where they can see their old parents from anywhere in the world,” he said.