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Elders say home care ayi is just like a daughter to them
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YOU Xiaoxia has been an home care attendant for the elderly since 2007 and in the eyes of many seniors, she is like their daughter.
“They are like parents to me. I value family more than money,” You told Shanghai Daily in a recent interview.
The award-winning housekeeper has worked at the Zhenru Service Center for the Elderly since 2007. She could earn several times her current salary if she worked with wealthier clients, but she prefers to help seniors.
Working in Zhenru Town, You goes to the seniors’ homes to clean regularly and provide daily living assistance. She cleans scrupulously, even under the bed, and brings daily necessities.
She keeps a notebook containing minute details about the senior she cares for, in addition to the basics: who needs groceries, whose water and electricity bills must be paid, who needs to be accompanied to the hospital.
In 1992, You moved to Shanghai from Yancheng, Jiangsu Province. She married and became a housekeeper or ayi. The work is very hard.
In 2011, she was assigned to care for a visually impaired couple living in Zhenru. The wife surnamed Tang is now 68 and her husband Shi is in his 80s.
You visits three times a week and spends an hour and a half each time. But she does more than put in the required hours.
When Tang was hospitalized, her own children had to take care of her, her husband and grandchild. For one month, You pitched in, riding a bicycle every day to take care of Shi at home.
Last year she took Tang to a distant hospital several times for treatment.
She does this kind of work mostly in her off-duty hours, but she doesn’t count hours or punch the clock.
You takes Tang’s blood pressure two or three times every day and records it. When Tang goes to the hospital, she takes notes on what the doctors said. She prepares all medication in advance.
The elders You has cared for are grateful, not just for her basic care, but especially for her company and the many times they chat happily.
“The things she says are very useful and I always listen to her,” said Tang.
After three years, Tang treats You as her own daughter, telling her not to come when it rains, giving her herbal tea in summer, and not letting her clean high windows in case she falls.
“They are good to me too. We are like a family,” said You.
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