The Birches celebrates 23 years in Dundalk

The Birches Day Care Centre in Dundalk recently celebrated twenty-three years in the town.

The centre provides a range of support to those who have been diagnosed with Alzheimers as well as their families.

A mainstay in all that time has been Nurse Manager Olive Joyce, who has been there from the very beginning.

“I can’t believe I’m still here all these years later and I wouldn’t be if I wasn’t as passionate and determined to support the person with dementia and their family,” she says.

The idea for a Day Care Centre in the town originally came over twenty-five years ago from a family support group for people who had been affected by dementia which met regularly in the Redemptorist.

Olive explained:

“It was down to one or two people being diagnosed with Alzheimers, one being the late Kitty Soraghan’s husband Morris and then the parents of a lovely family from Ardee.

“People didn’t know a lot about Alzeimers in that time, and from that it grew.

“From the support group came the fundraising committee, and they decided they needed to do something.

“We opened The Birches in 2000. It took that group eighteen months to raise the money and build the building.

“So it started from that tiny seed in the Redemptorist and we have come a long way.”

Social Club

The Birches have recently launched their social club, which will meet on the third Saturday of every month for 11am to 1pm.

The club is being seen as a stepping stone for a client and their family before coming into The Birches Day Care Centre.

A family member is being invited to take their loved one along to the Saturday Morning Social Club, where they can stay to have a cup of tea and a chat with members of The Birches team and volunteers.

They will be in a position to deal with any concerns or questions the client or family member might have. After a cup of tea, there will be social activities like music and a quiz.

“It’s a bit different to what we do normally. It’s probably more of a bridge between getting diagnosed and accessing services,” says Olive.

“It allows people to step into a service while trying to take the fear away.”

Olive says it can be very unsettling for a person diagnosed with dementia and their family, particularly in the early stages.
“People think, ‘Where do we go?’ What do we do?’ they also mightn’t think they’re ready for the day service.

“But to attend this you don’t have to be attending other services. It’s really about the early stages where you’re on the road but maybe haven’t linked in anywhere and are unsure.”

“Oftentimes what can happen with people with dementia is they can lose their sociability and pull back.

“And part of the social club is to remove the isolation and after Covid, that is so important because we are still seeing that a certain generation has not reconnected with their social network.”

Support group

In addition to the social club the branch also has a monthly support group for family and friends of people with dementia that continues on the last Thursday of the month at 7.30pm.

“Their journey is very different, as a witness or as a supporter, and we know the stresses carers are under, particularly after coming through Covid,” Olive explains.

“It’s a place where you can come in and you’re safe and you meet people who are on the same journey either ahead of you or behind you, but also you have the backup that you need, and it’s totally confidential.

“We have run the support group for the past twenty-three years. It was probably the first service set up in the county.

“We have two support groups. One full of people who we would have known over the years whose loved one has maybe gone onto the next stage, either to a nursing home or maybe has passed on and they still stay in touch and they still meetup.

“And then we have the Thursday night one for those maybe starting on the journey or maybe since Covid dementia has come into their family.”

Olive says the support group offers a chance for people to talk and discuss any issues they may be having or if they are initially feeling overwhelmed.

“The journey for the spouse or partner and the journey for an adult child are different.

“Whether we like it or not, there’s a lot of grief involved. So even just dealing with the emotional issues is very different.

“There’s an awful lot of carers stressed at the moment. You don’t get a lead in time to this (a diagnosis).

“You’re not told ‘in two years' time you have to do xyz,’ you’re thrown in the deep end and all of a sudden this is your new world.

“The person with dementia and their support are in that world together, but their experience is different. So that’s where the support group would provide emotional support and a clear space and a safe space to say what they’re feeling.

“Unless you’re walking in somebody’s shoes, you really don’t understand it and that’s another thing the group gives them.

“Another thing we’d look at is giving them practical support, where they need to go, what they need to do.”

She says that Louth has some of the best dementia supports in the country and recent years have seen a huge increase in support from the HSE.

“We now have the gerontology clinic over in the Louth… and they have an array of experts, clinical nurse specialists, advanced nurse practitioners, OTs, physios.

“All of that expertise is available to everybody so we could be signposting people to there, or the memory clinic in Ardee.

“There are other specialist teams in the community now that will support people on the journey at different stages.”

Home Support Service

Always looking for innovative ways to provide support, the Dundalk branch was one of the original pilots of a home support service which has now gone national.

The service sees nurses offer in-home care for patients and their families, which Olive says can be invaluable.

“You get a block of hours and that could be two hours of just help with everyday living.

“Oftentimes a person with dementia needs support to do something. You work with them and not for them.

“There’s a phrase I love ‘We kill people with kindness’ because we do things for them.

“We think we’re doing the right thing, but it can be better to work with them, and for families that are stressed that can take a great deal of patience.

“[It can be hard] if you’re under the gun and you’ve got a young family or a job, or maybe you’re a certain age and dealing with your own health issues and sometimes it’s just easier for you to just do it for them rather than just work with the person because it takes a lot of time

“Often a person with dementia may not want a family member assisting them or working with them.

“So the daycare at home provides that space around activities, be they social or household.

“It helps give the carer a break to get out and go shopping or get their hair done. It’s a significant block of hours they can get out.”

One thing Olive says has been constant over the years has been the support The Birches has received from the local community.

“When we started in the very beginning, our running costs were funded 35% by the Health Board as it was in those days and then the rest was fundraising.

"But now we have got our funding up with the HSE to maybe 65-70% just before Covid.

“We are here because of the community support and the HSE. It’s a partnership and we need both to keep going.

“The community has without fail kept our books balanced at the end of every year. Without the community support, we would not be as strong as we are 23 years in.

“The HSE is our major funder and I have to give them credit because in this county we are particularly blessed, the services have grown.

“Don’t get me wrong, it’s not perfect, but there has been tremendous progress and tremendous support now in this county compared to when we first started. People should know there is support and there is help out there and it’s growing.”

A sign that supports are growing is the planned September reopening of the group’s outreach centre at Rath Abbey on the Cooley Peninsula which had been closed during Covid

“We hope to restart the service in September every Monday. So anybody on the peninsula who has dementia will have the opportunity to come to Rath Abbey rather than to Dundalk as an outreach programme.

“My goal is to ensure the services continue to grow. Yes we have challenges ahead, but we’re moving forward and we’re building.

“After the awfulness of Covid, it’s great to be pushing forward and expanding out the services.

“The big message is don’t wait. The earlier you link in, the better your quality of life will be.

“This is about holding onto skills, holding on to memories and making the best of your life.”