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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

Heartbroken that I'm being forced to sell mum's house, she worked hard for it and paid her national insurance

999 replies

Jkoakham · 25/07/2018 09:28

And now her savings are running out I will need to sell her house to carry on funding it.

It all seems to very unfair, her house was supposed to be passed to me but instead it's affectively passed to government and private companies.

I thought the dimentia tax had been can cancelled?

OP posts:
OhTheRoses · 30/07/2018 10:46

She was in a geriatric mental health home for those with dementia/alzheimers - there were patie ts there in their 40s. It isn't restricted to the elderly. My grandmother died in 1999. The unit closed a few years later. Those patients are now absorbed into nursing homes, financed by families!

The situation is unacceptable.

Bl00Curtainz · 30/07/2018 10:46

Everyone is living longer, so this issue is only going to increase. I've had experience of family and friends ageing. Some people have passed away at home, some have required help at home or in care. We all wish people to have the best care. How we continue to pay ? I don't know what we will all do, but we all need the most appropriate care

crunchymint · 30/07/2018 10:59

The issue isn't so much that people are living longer, but that we can keep people alive with serious illnesses for much longer now. At one time many of these people would have died far sooner.

jasjas1973 · 30/07/2018 11:00

The situation is unacceptable

This is why we need a fully funded social care system, we cannot fund specialist units on the back of a few house sales and rises in council tax (which incidentally hit the low & average earner especially hard)

Higher rate tax rises (btw this would hit me) halting tax cuts for corporations and wealthy individuals is the way forward.... have i mentioned any of this before? lol!

MarshaBradyo · 30/07/2018 11:29

Yes Cruchymint and at some point cancer related illnesses will be more treatable

Then it will be more likely that long lasting brain related ones will hit more of us

Bl00Curtainz · 30/07/2018 12:20

People are living with more complex illnesses - Medical advances in modern countries since WW1/2 are indeed keeping people alive longer, antibiotics, surgeries minor and major, immunisations etc. Some people with some conditions lived in institutions, now they live in the community. If you have money or assets in your old age, it currently provides people with a greater choice and probably better health, so that they may live even longer in good health

IrmaFayLear · 30/07/2018 12:34

Mil - with “complete” dementia, experienced a couple of bouts of pneumonia. Now, she was on a DNR (do not resuscitate) but because pneumonia is treatable she was ambulanced off to hospital by the care home, pumped full of antibiotics and back she came. All the while utterly unaware of what was going on. DNR apparently only applies to heart attacks. She could have slipped away peacefully instead of being taken backwards and forwards.

ajandjjmum · 30/07/2018 13:03

You can do a 'letter of wishes' to give guidance for what happens under the above circumstances Irma. Although I suppose it's up to the family to raise it should the worst come to the worst. Similar thing happened to FIL.

MeltingPregnantLady · 30/07/2018 13:38

You want a DNACPR and an advanced decision in place before capacity is lost. More and more memory clinics are starting to have end of life conversations with newly diagnosed patients within the first couple of months of diagnosis to stress the importance of getting these wishes into writing.

MeltingPregnantLady · 30/07/2018 13:41

NHS information about refusing end of life treatment you can also seek advice from your local hospices.

SinisterBumFacedCat · 30/07/2018 19:08

I think the news today about it becoming easier for families and doctors to decide to withdraw food and water for those in a vegetive state from which they won't recover, therefore hastening the end is a very tentative step in the right direction towards allowing a more dignified death. I'm really hoping that soon dementia will be treatable or assisted dying made legal eventually. The alternate is pretty much torture for those going through it, and their families.

Jux · 30/07/2018 19:38

Does removing food and water give anything like a dignified death? I was under the imoressikn that it was far from it.

Jux · 30/07/2018 19:38

Impression, that is.

Bombardier25966 · 30/07/2018 19:44

Does removing food and water give anything like a dignified death? I was under the imoressikn that it was far from it.

When it's managed with the correct palliative care, it would be dignified. The patient would not be in any distress. Of course, that only happens when there is adequate staffing, which is a concern in the NHS currently (and will only get worse the way things are going).

MissCharleyP · 30/07/2018 19:47

Haven’t RTFT but I think people are being harsh to the OP. It is now harder and harder to afford property, especially in the south east. Until three years ago I was living in private rented because my salary of £30k just about covered rent, bills and my season ticket. I know my dad (living in the north) worried desperately that I was mid-30s and had no security at all. I’d have had to earn an extra £10k to be able to get a mortgage on the place I was renting (as well as save six months wages for a deposit). The town I lived in before I’d have had to earn more than double what I was on with around 9 months wages as a deposit. Both of my parents would have been upset if I couldn’t have received anything from them to help me after they were gone. Thankfully, I am in a much better financial position now. However, I think as people aren’t able to buy property as easily now, then there’ll be a huge gap in people who can’t pay for themselves. Councils should not have been so reliant on property owners to fund care.

jasjas1973 · 30/07/2018 19:49

My mum chose to stop eating, then drinking, just a small sponge on a stick to stop her mouth going dry.
Drugs were available to treat any distress but she didnt need any, i would talk to her about her garden, her love of music, play classical music on my iphone to her and took a video of a walk around a garden which she appeared to be thrilled by, it was'nt torture at all and i'm glad we had that time.

Force feeding patients is hardly humane and my Mum didnt appear to suffer at all, just gradual weakness until she died, obv still very upsetting but i'm glad she d didnt carry-on for months or even years, there was little if any quality of life and she knew it.

The judgement today is about people who through accident or illness suffer severe brain damage, its nothing to do with end of life care, i think it ll be generations before we have Dignitas style Clinics in the UK.

Maelil · 30/07/2018 19:55

YABU
N I contributions go towards medical care, not housing and in any case are not enough to cover nursing home fees. It is unreasonable to expect laundry, food, cleaning, entertainments and other things to be paid for by others. The fees will be subsidised to help with the nursing element.
For those who would encourage their relatives to “piss away the money”, be careful. If you have no savings to top- up fees your. BOI does of home will be limited and extremely basic. I will happily pay the extra for a better quality home when the time comes!

Tessliketrees · 30/07/2018 20:10

It is an absolute scandal that dementia patients have been lumped under ‘social care’ when we have a clinical system that does everything possible to keep people alive

I said this earlier but it bears repeating. That is not unique to dementia. All social care needs under the Care Act must stem from a mental or physical health condition.

Why would dementia be any different to arthritis?

Also dementia isn't lumped in anything, just like every other health condition it depends on the complexity of the care needed.

DopeyDazy · 31/07/2018 21:44

Helena Dove sad though that is they could always go back to Lithuania and see what help they get there.

MeltingPregnantLady · 01/08/2018 09:04

@helenadove if she isn't a UK national she won't have recourse to public funds so the options for them will be self fund or find someone who will pay for them or go back to their native country. It's all on the UK border website

IrmaFayLear · 01/08/2018 09:17

This may be very sad but nothing to do with this thread. If I turned up in Lithuania or anywhere else come to that I doubt whether I would be given a nursing home place.

OnlyMakeBelieve · 01/08/2018 10:15

I love the way posters think people living on benefits or in rented accommodation are having a whale of a time, with fancy cars and exotic holidays every year. Try telling that to Jack Monroe.

Bluelady · 01/08/2018 10:25

So very true. There are so many pensioners who only get their state pension - a maximum of £648 every four weeks. Not many exotic holidays on that.

crunchymint · 01/08/2018 10:33

Only 50% of people who retired this year got the full state pension. Many people get far less.