Carehome telling family patient has died.

[ginandnappies]

Hey everyone

Posting here for traffic.

My brothers partners family has a bit of an issue, and I just want to see if anyone has any advice.

Her grandad is in a care home and her mum (his daughter) got a phone call today saying he had passed away. It has been expected for a few days. She wasn't near the home, so an hour later she got another phone call saying they made a mistake and when they went to wash him he was breathing.

Surely this isn't right. They never got a doctor to confirm the death. She was in shock after the phone call so just said ok and put the phone down.

Anyone got any advice?

Xx

It can be pretty impossible to tell - as can predicting how long someone's got left.

In death terms, believe it or not, that's no bad thing. An active, lingering death can be unforgettably horrible - proper trauma - for the family, so thank your lucky stars DF is going gently and calmly.

At least the family can be with DF now.

With regard to the previous posts discussing breaking the news by phone: I work in a hospital and ideally with an expected death we will discuss with the family in advance how they wish the news to be broken i.e. would they rather be told in person or by phone and would they still want to be phoned if it happened at 3am or would they rather we waited until the morning.

The “old” way of doing things was to phone them and tell them to come in and wait to break the news in person but that’s not always best - for example if they are several hours journey away then it may be much kinder to tell them over the phone than make them travel all that way.

If anyone has a relative in this situation and it hasn’t been discussed with you please don’t be afraid to bring it up.

Hi all,

Thanks a lot for all replies it's very helpful with lots of different experiences.

Sadly he passed today, he was a fighter till the end.

Thanks again x