What not to do next time
By M on Saturday 9 February 2008, 18:29 - Journal - Permalink
The call Greg received yesterday afternoon was from the manager of the
retirement complex, who was in a rage. She accused us of 'dumping' our mother
at the home and not telling anybody about it, we had left them late on a Friday
afternoon with someone they had not expected, were not ready for, and for whom
they could provide no medical help if required. The answer was that we had to
return and take our mother out again.
Our interpretation and the home's interpretation of 'moving in' differed. Their instructions to Rachel were not as clear and direct as I would have worded them. We were required to, for example, 'confirm' with the Hostel Manager when we would be moving mum in. We asked for her on our first visit, when mum was still safely ensconced at home, but she was not there in person, and apparently our message was not interpreted as 'confirmation'. We later left mum in the hands of another staff member who seemed happy to take mum around, no questions asked. Rachel, Greg and I all, admittedly, found the process informal, pleasantly so.
But no! Rules had been flouted, Procedures disregarded, Instructions disobeyed and Disaster invited. Luckily, Greg stayed cool. As he said later, when you fight fires every day, one more is just all in a day's work. He had made a point of confirming the names of the people we had spoken to on both our visits. On the first visit we had gone to the desk and asked for our Hostel Manager by name, and before we left at the end of the second visit we had stayed at the desk to do what we thought was the final hand-over. We could implicate others in the plot. Greg cut to the crux of the matter: what can we do now to rectify things and leave mum in place. Aside from smoothing ruffled feathers here and there, it amounted to one thing: have mum's GP 'admit' her. A call to the GP a few minutes later, a quick explanation of what had happened ensued, and the GP was within 90 minutes at the home to sort things out. The GP, Dr Patella, had always been happy to make house calls for mum, even on the flimsiest call-outs from the nurses.
So, in the end we still had the result we wanted, and had probably broken a few land speed records in the process. However, we have blotted our copybook with the manager and probably used up a bit of goodwill credit we would have found useful for dealing with dad in the next few weeks.
Later that evening, after dinner with Greg and Regan, I kept wondering what mum was doing, whether she was asleep, calm, anxious, afraid. For the first time in many months I wished we had a functioning web-cam with which to spy on her. The advice we got yesterday is that we should leave her there for a week before visiting. This seems much less severe than the 2-4 weeks that D cited in her post earlier this week.
Dad, meanwhile, has been working the phones:
'Mum's disappeared somewhere.'
'I'm really upset about this business.'
'I don't know where she's gone to.'
'Everybody's trying to look for her.'
'Nobody knows where she's gone to.'
'She's over at the mall somewhere. I don't know why.'
And so on.
So we've had our first taste of retirement village bureaucracy and a further sample of dad's ever-deepening confusion. It was good to feel on top of things for a few hours yesterday, however brief that was.
Our interpretation and the home's interpretation of 'moving in' differed. Their instructions to Rachel were not as clear and direct as I would have worded them. We were required to, for example, 'confirm' with the Hostel Manager when we would be moving mum in. We asked for her on our first visit, when mum was still safely ensconced at home, but she was not there in person, and apparently our message was not interpreted as 'confirmation'. We later left mum in the hands of another staff member who seemed happy to take mum around, no questions asked. Rachel, Greg and I all, admittedly, found the process informal, pleasantly so.
But no! Rules had been flouted, Procedures disregarded, Instructions disobeyed and Disaster invited. Luckily, Greg stayed cool. As he said later, when you fight fires every day, one more is just all in a day's work. He had made a point of confirming the names of the people we had spoken to on both our visits. On the first visit we had gone to the desk and asked for our Hostel Manager by name, and before we left at the end of the second visit we had stayed at the desk to do what we thought was the final hand-over. We could implicate others in the plot. Greg cut to the crux of the matter: what can we do now to rectify things and leave mum in place. Aside from smoothing ruffled feathers here and there, it amounted to one thing: have mum's GP 'admit' her. A call to the GP a few minutes later, a quick explanation of what had happened ensued, and the GP was within 90 minutes at the home to sort things out. The GP, Dr Patella, had always been happy to make house calls for mum, even on the flimsiest call-outs from the nurses.
So, in the end we still had the result we wanted, and had probably broken a few land speed records in the process. However, we have blotted our copybook with the manager and probably used up a bit of goodwill credit we would have found useful for dealing with dad in the next few weeks.
Later that evening, after dinner with Greg and Regan, I kept wondering what mum was doing, whether she was asleep, calm, anxious, afraid. For the first time in many months I wished we had a functioning web-cam with which to spy on her. The advice we got yesterday is that we should leave her there for a week before visiting. This seems much less severe than the 2-4 weeks that D cited in her post earlier this week.
Dad, meanwhile, has been working the phones:
'Mum's disappeared somewhere.'
'I'm really upset about this business.'
'I don't know where she's gone to.'
'Everybody's trying to look for her.'
'Nobody knows where she's gone to.'
'She's over at the mall somewhere. I don't know why.'
And so on.
So we've had our first taste of retirement village bureaucracy and a further sample of dad's ever-deepening confusion. It was good to feel on top of things for a few hours yesterday, however brief that was.
Comments
I didn't catch the fact that it was a Friday when you admitted your mom. We made the very same mistake. My father was wheeled in on a Friday afternoon for his first admission to a nursing home. We were in the room we were told to go to. His new home. I sat with him for hours waiting for someone to notice he was there. NO ONE CAME BY. I went to the front desk and they were busy, busy, busy, no one could tell me anything, no one knew anything, and everybody acted like I wasn't even there. I couldn't just leave because he'd walk right out of the place. I couldn't talk him into leaving so we sat until he finally fell asleep. I kept thinking there's something wrong with this process. The night nurse came in to do a room check and she was shocked that I was sitting there. I asked what the heck I was supposed to do. She said to leave, to let go of him, to trust them. I told her I was willing to do just that but he had no name tag, no identification, and no way of telling anyone who he was. How was I to leave? Who would know who he was? She was very flustered when she understood he hadn't actually been admitted by anyone.
This is when I started wondering if anyone, desperate for help, had ever wheeled their loved one into a nursing home and left them sitting in the middle of the common room. Would anyone realize they didn't belong? Who would notice? Who would figure it out? Would staff think they had overlooked an admission? How would that be resolved? At my father's nursing home, the turnover was so great we never knew who worked there and who didn't. We didn't know and I'll bet the workers didn't know who the actual patients were either...
Our initial experience was the first of many, many situations that eventually made it clear to me that the care I imagined my father would be getting with the "experts" was far from what I envisioned.
I was told later by the people who work in nursing homes to never admit someone on a Friday. And after reading about your experience, I can only shake my head how often history repeats itself in the lives of so many of our parents.
Glad to hear your parent's doctor stepped in. And wish you continued success along this path you're trudging. Thank you for sharing it with us. So many times I've been sitting here nodding in agreement with what you've written.