Hi everyone. I have written before and I’m finding myself writing yet again. I have shared previously that my mother and I share a very strange relationship, with her only seeing me maybe seven times over the past 40 years. We talk when needed, and the last few years she has been increasingly angry with me when I try to help her. So I have distance myself and alerted any caregivers of the same. A few months back, she made a mistake by checking herself out of an assisted living going home with no planning place and I had to call adult protection on her. She wound up back in the hospital back in rehab and then returned to her home after 3 months with caregivers in place. After realizing the amount of money it is costing her. She has fired them as of the 26th. Even with the caregivers, she’s still not able to take care of her daily activities: she let her phone get shut off, which I just turned back on, she let her Medicaire supplemental lapse, and her prescriptions weren’t getting filled because that also lapsed. I did get that reinstated, but without access to her bank account and relying on her saying she will do it, it is just going to get not paid again. I called her three days ago and she sounded very out of it. I was aware that her caregiver had a bad cold and advised the caregiver that my mother sounded like she was dehydrated and possibly suffering from a UTI or some other infection and advised her she needed to call 911 as a mandated reporter even if my mom didn’t want her to do it. She did and now my mother is in hospital with sepsis, pneumonia ( contracted by the caregiver ) and a UTI and on oxygen. I spoke with her briefly today. I had a 20 minute conversation with her doctor, and the hospital Social Worker advising them that I am not involved in her care, but that I feel a certain obligation to advise them with the truth of the situation is. My mother will present is very competent when in fact she’s not able to care for herself. Doctor advised that she wants to get her stable and then send her to rehab. The plan was that at that point we’d be able to get a social worker or adult protection or someone else involved where the state could come in and assume guardianship and put her in some kind of care facility. Now the social worker called me back to tell me that my mother has no more days for rehab left, and would have to return home. I informed her that would be an unsafe discharge because she has terminated the caregivers as of the 26th. I have no leverage in this situation and I don’t wanna get any more involved. It sounds like my mother can’t go to a rehab and her only option would be to go direct from the hospital to Assisted Living or a nursing home, or back to her house with these private care people in place. What am I supposed to do at this point? She is capable of making her own choices but not making good ones. I live 3000 miles away. We don’t have a good relationship. Can the Hospital Social Worker and the adult protection team that I just called again work together to have some kind of stain appointed person look after her? The only other option is, she will have to be convinced to “ unfire “ those workers through the service, bite the bullet and pay for private care until her funds run out. That is the part that she continues to argue about as well. I am at a loss legally and morally in this situation. I do not want to go out there because it will just result in fights and arguments somewhere in her paperwork. She has named me as power of attorney but I don’t even know where that paperwork is sorry if I am rambling, but my fear is if they decide to discharge her in three days there has to be a plan. What if I just tell the hospital you all figure it out
I had a similar case where a client kept signing herself out or rehab only to end up back in there a month or two later. Her caregiver who was getting ready to move out was forced to stay. Client went back into the hospital again and ended right back into rehab. It was like a revolving door.
I'm with everyone else here, stop answering those calls. Let them all roll over to voice mail. As long as you didn't sign any paperwork, you are not obligated to provide any type of care even from a distance.
The social worker told us that the county would be responsible for him if we declined which we did.
Just keep saying "unsafe discharge". There is no one to care for her in her home. She will not do what needs to be done to secure help. If they still demand discharge to home, get APS involved.
You let the social worker at the hospital and APS figure it out . Tell the hospital you have no leverage with Mom .