Socialities

The case of Janice custos

Seven years ago Janice was badly burned. At first her local hospital told her not to worry; they would attempt a skin graft. The graft didn't take, and it was from this point that Janice's mother says the hospital suspected that her daughter might have multiple sclerosis.

The loss of good health was not all that awaited Janice. Soon afterwards her marriage broke up and Janice found herself, together with four children, living in a Nottingham slum.

For two years Janice survived — just. Then, with her health much worse, she took the children to Nottingham Station. She told her eldest daughter, who was eleven, to 'phone the children's department and say that their mother had gone to London to look for both work and a home. Janice was met and arrested on arriving in London.

The police took her back to Nottingham and the local magistrate's court made over her children to the care of the local authority. Janice went into hospital "because of my nerves" for two years. Then, for a shore time, she came to live with her sister, but already Janice was needing the help of someone throughout the day. As 'her needs grew she therefore returned to hospital and was only brought home seventeen months ago.

This time it was her mother (called here Mrs Davies), who took on the full-time role of nurse. "I didn't know anything about nursing, but I couldn't leave my daughter in there, could I?"

Mrs Davies' day starts at five in the morning. She gives Janice a cup of tea and sits with her while she smokes her first cigarette. "I always have to do this now. Janice has set light to the bed-clothes more than once. She finds it difficult to hold a fag."

The next task is to wake Peter, Janice's second eldest child, and get him ready for school. Peter, who is thirteen, leaves home at about 8.30. Afterwards Mrs. Davies prepares for the nurse who comes in during the morning to bath Janice.

"After making the dinner and feeding Janice, I tackle the laundry." Each day the main wash is two sheets, a pillow case, night-dress, vest, bedjacket and surgical dressings. But often it is more for Janice is not only incontinent, but "a bad eater " who vomits quite a lot.

The next job is to prepare the tea for Peter when he comes home and then feed Janice. "It's after tea I get my first break in the day and I have to go to bed at about 9.30." Before turning in for the night Mrs Davies drugs her daughter, "I'd never survive otherwise."

The drugs allow Mrs Davies a good night's sleep but, for a long time, robbed Janice of a constant attendance allowance.

If Janice gets one her weekly income. will be boosted from £12.50 to E17.30. At the moment she receives the basic supplementary allowance for herself and Peter, plus an additional 23p to cover the cost of extra heating, and the excess wear and tear on her clothes.

The right to a constant attendance allowance is only one of the battles Janice has been waging from her bed. The other is to see her two youngest children. Both are in the care of the local authority who, in turn, has paid foster mothers to look after Belinda who is seven, and six-year-old Alan. A succession of foster mothers have looked after Belinda. She is now with the third. Alan has had only one foster mother, who desperately wants to adopt inim.

The local authority maintains that the children's visits to their mother upsets them. To see one's mother so desperately ill cannot be the most comforting of sights, especially for young children.

Anyway, both the social worker "a young girl in a mini-skirt" and Mrs Davies dispute just how upset the children become and, in fact, when the upset occurs. The welfare department maintains that the children cry before going to see their mother; Mrs Davies when they are made to leave.

Will Janice ever again see her two youngest children? This is the question which dominates her waking hours.

The local authority, despite pleas from outsiders, remains intransigent. Janice is now forced to apply for legal aid and go before the local court. If she wins this battle, the local authority will be directed to allow the much wanted visits. But the court's decision will have an importance extending far beyond one family. Janice is questioning the way local authorities exercise some of their discretionary powers, and many other mothers and children will be affected by the outcome.