At 32 years old, Kimberley Sandiford is the owner of Trusted Care Providers, a company which cares for the elderly and children, and she couldn’t be happier.
As a teenager, she had to take on the daunting task of caring for her ailing grandmother Eudora Sandiford, who suffered from Alzheimer’s disease. At the time, it was far from what Kimberley wanted to be doing as a young woman, but that quickly changed and she developed a love for caring for those in their twilight years.
“I was raised by my grandmother. She started to develop Alzheimer’s.
As a teenager, dealing with someone with Alzheimer’s is quite frustrating. It’s really difficult because they tend to make up stuff and make things really difficult and because you’re so young it would feel that your grandmother is accusing you of something that you didn’t do. But as I got older I started to understand the illness. I got to learn about it a lot more in terms of the stages that you go through. That developed my passion for caring for seniors,” she explained.
After discovering her true love and being out of a full-time job, Kimberley made the bold decision to start her own business in 2014 and has not looked back since.
“I attended the Barbados Youth Entrepreneurship Scheme so I could learn more about running a business. My original thought was just to provide senior care. I didn’t think about hiring staff. It came like I was just doing something for myself. I just had the idea and I just knew I loved caring for people,” she explained.
Sadly though, her grandmother passed away in 2016, in the midst of her getting her business off the ground. But that encouraged her to push even harder.
“In the final stages of her being sick, she was here with me. I was there for her until the end. Family for me comes first; no matter what is going on family comes first. It was difficult for me seeing her like that. Seeing someone you love sick is always hard. When she passed away, even though I felt bad I didn’t grieve. I poured myself more into my work. But it was really difficult in terms of losing her because she’s the reason I started my business in the first place. She was a part of everything I did. If not for living with her and caring for her, I never would have understood the importance of caring for seniors,” she said on a sad note.
Kimberley told EASY that had her grandmother been alive today she would have been proud of the work she was doing – which is why she continues to push so hard.
However, she said the journey has not been an easy one.
“I went through a lot of hard times. When I started I wasn’t charging properly. I was underpricing myself and the business wasn’t doing well.
At times the staff was making more money than the business was making.
I had to sit down and meditate and think in terms of what I could do to make it better. I had to do a lot of restructuring and decide a way forward,” she said.
But she was determined to find a way to make her business a success.
“Only the Lord keeps me going. Nothing in this life is easy and only the Lord can sustain you. It’s hard. Some days you don’t want to get out of bed, some days it’s frustrating. I’m not in competition with any other companies. I sit down and think of how I would like my business to run ten years from now and I do it now that’s how I operate,” she said.
The outspoken caretaker said she strives daily to be the best that she can be and tries to inspire her staff to do just the same.
“My main duties are the operations of the business. I have to ensure the clients are happy; I have to ensure the staff are happy because there’s a balance. I know people say the client comes first but that’s nonsense. The staff comes first – if your staff are happy, your clients will be happy,” she said.
Kimberley said through her work she hoped to bring a greater awareness to the need for improved elderly care on the island.
“Senior care is needed in Barbados. We have a lot of seniors who are in need of care but not able to afford it. Private nursing care is expensive. Most of the times when persons go into nursing homes they quickly pass away because you’re taking them away from what they are accustomed to. So sometimes it’s better if you get private care for them.”
“We have to do much more to see what we can do to help the seniors.
A lot of seniors are on the island but not everyone has access to the care that they need. So we have to look into seeing what we could do in terms of caring for them. That’s something I want to do. It’s not about my business, but there’s something more we can do in terms of helping,” she said passionately.
Kimberley added: “We are small but we are willing to help in terms of doing more for the elderly.
“In life you get out what you put in. I want to be a contributor and I want to leave my mark on this earth.” (DB)
