Take My Father, Please

John and I are busting our asses to get my father into an assisted care facility for respite, meaning 30 days or less of care, and then possibly helping my mom make a long-term decision after that time. Easy, right? My mom and I toured places all day last Friday and found a great facility not 10 miles from their home. They had an opening and we were planning on getting him in today.

Well……I called the facility this morning to confirm and was told that my father needed a level of care that they couldn’t provide and told me he needed to be put in a nursing home. I asked how they came about that assessment as he is fairly ambulatory, is completely lucid, and just needs a level of care conducive to a 91 year old with a broken arm.

Back to last week…I spoke to the primary care physician's case manager, Sheila (something about that name, perhaps?), who insisted that both my parents needed to be in a nursing home, period. Mind you, my mother drives, does all the shopping, laundry, taxes, bill paying…well, you get the point. She may be 87, but she is definitely not ready to go anywhere.

I told Sheila that the decision regarding that was up to my mother and father, no one else. She scolded me on the phone and proceeded to tell me she, ‘didn’t want to explain everything to me, sigh, again’ (I’d never spoken to her), as she had already had ‘conversations with several members of your family’. She had previously spoken only to my mom and my husband. Besides, isn’t that her fucking job to explain things to family members? At that point, I decided we needed to go over her head. Guess who her boss is, according to her? No one.

Today, I found out that Sheila filled out the paperwork, specifying that my dad needed full time care, and that Sheila spoke to the facility and told them the same thing. Then when I called her on it, she lied and said she never spoke to the facility, while I was on the phone with the facility, them telling me they spoke to Sheila. Now the facility will not admit him.

We have an appointment with a new doctor Thursday morning and are having my dad home cared until we can get the paperwork amended. We are also filing a formal complaint against Sheila. Another day, another disaster. Stay tuned…