I was a census collector for the nursing home.
I did apply to be a regular collector, same as I have done for the past two censuses, in 2001 and 2006, walking miles and meeting people at their doors, coming back the next week to pick up the forms. I remembered it as quite enjoyable and got me out and walking, which I like. But at the training day I remembered what a big workload it was, and wondered why I had taken it on again, when I met a “reserve” who was breaking her neck to actually do the job, so we swapped and I went on standby instead. But I agreed to do the nursing home because they couldn’t find anybody else.
I thought it would work out well, that I could visit Don and then slip away at intervals to the various wards to distribute the forms, do the paperwork in his room, spend a lot of time with him and still get the job done. It did sort of work out that way, and it all went quite smoothly.
And I got paid about $350 for the 120 residents that we had.
But it was definitely a lot of work! Because basically nobody in a nursing home, by definition, can fill out the form themselves, with a few notable exceptions. They have shaky hands and can’t write, or they can’t see, or their memory has gone and they can’t remember. So I pinned up the census form in a very obvious place in everybody’s room, and had a notice put on the sign-on book, asking visitors to help their person to fill out the form and hand it in to the desk. I was told that about 50% of the residents get visitors in any given week, which frankly I thought is pretty good. I don’t think it turned out to be that much, but the visitors did respond well.
Otherwise it was an “interview”, where I sat with the person and asked if they remember when their birthday is, and how many children they have had, and whether they finished High School or primary school, and were their mother and father born in Australia or where?, and how long they have been here in the nursing home, and so forth.
Interestingly, the least reliable answer was to how long they have been there. (Obviously the census wants to know how mobile we are as a society, so they ask what was our address one year ago, and five years ago.) I quickly learned to ignore most people’s answer to that question, and get it from the records, which I was allowed access to for the occasion. People who could tell me clearly that they had finished High School and went on to do midwifery, or did a carpentry certificate and worked all over NSW, or reminisced about their children and who they were and what they were all doing (none of which is relevant to the census but they did want to talk) — would then get vague and say, Oh I only came in last week; or else, I think I’ve been here a fortnight at the most; or else, I’m only here for a week and then I’m going home. And I would check it out with staff or the records, and they have been there for years and years.
Denial. How could we survive without it?
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