85-year-old hopes to go viral with rap video in bid to save Ullapool care home in Wester Ross
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On her eighty-fifth birthday, retired social worker Jill Beavitt will perform a protest rap for a video she hopes will go viral to raise awareness about elderly care in the north–west Highlands.
Jill Beavitt, who lives off-grid on the remote Scoraig peninsula near Ullapool, was inspired to write the rap after she attended a packed community meeting about the closure of the local nursing care home, Mo Dhachaidh.
Parklands Care Homes had sparked a shocked response when it announced Mo Dhachaidh care home, which they had taken over last August, would close. Locals have expressed deep concerns over the future of rural social care, as Mo Dhachaidh was one of the two nursing homes serving the entire northwest Highlands, from Kyle of Lochalsh to Durness.
Having been a social worker for the elderly in Ullapool before Mo Dhachaidh was built I experienced how heartbreaking it was to send people far away for care. - Jill Beavitt
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Over 50 people had gone out on a Sunday evening in late February, many such as Jill travelling considerable distances, to discuss what action might be taken to save the home. As the meeting closed, Tim Gauntlett who previously worked in a hospice, said: "We want to die with dignity".
Jill was so affected by this statement that she wrote a rap, and asked her friend Anne Wood to accompany her on fiddle. A further seven concerned local people, including Tim Gauntlett, have now joined the rap performance, and they will be filmed this March 29. The video will then be released to social media to raise awareness of the dearth of nursing care beds in the North West Highlands.
Jill lives in the remote off–grid community of Scoraig with travel of over an hour, including a boat trip, in order to reach Ullapool.
Jill Beavitt said: “I had the idea of the rap as a way to raise awareness of the situation because I feel very strongly about elderly care being that age myself. Having been a social worker for the elderly in Ullapool before Mo Dhachaidh was built I experienced how heartbreaking it was to send people far away for care. It is my 85th birthday on the day we perform. Somehow it seems awfully old, much older than 84, and therefore care might be looming.”
Tim Gauntlett, a resident of Ullapool, said: “I am no longer working for a living, I was previously a psychotherapist. My experience of social care is with a hospice, which is most certainly a place where all planning and delivery of care is with the emphasis upon enabling a person to die with dignity, in the presence of their family, supported by professional, caring staff.
"That should be the model. We should all live with the assurance that as we move closer to this final stage of our lives, that our services are professional and have the ability to support us and our families, to the very end, of which a nursing home is part of that spectrum of care.
"We all want to die with dignity so that we can face our fears and anxieties with a minimum of pain.”
