so we are now arresting people NOW Shocking

[Meadow1203]

I thought this was wind up but sadly it is true. A 73 year old retired nurse has been arrested and put in handcuffs because she took her own mother out of a care home. She has not had proper contact for 9 months and her poor 97 year old mum was ailing, she wanted to bring her home to care for her. Wow just wow how have we come to this.

Whilst this is truly distressing for the family not to see her.
What they have done is cruel. To her mum who would have had no idea what was happening.
To the poor care home worker who they pushed away as she opened the door to retrieve some flowers they had taken for their mum.
To all those in the care home they have put at risk of any of them had corona.
And also the police who were put in an impossible situation having to get the lady back to the care home.
I fully understand how distressed the lady must feel but as a former nurse surely she knows this is just not the way to go about things and their are channels put in place regardless of covid or not to get her mother out of the home.
As for her daughter using her interviews to push the fact that she doesn’t believe covid is so bad is appalling in itself. Let’s hope they haven’t put it into the home as I’m sure the staff and residents and their family’s won’t feel that way if people die because of this.

@derxa

My relations are looked after by wonderful people and are much more happy and settled than they were when they were struggling with their health and dementia in the community. I'm sure they were but my dad was enabled to live at home because he had an army of friends who helped him. He didn't have dementia though. It's not about whether care staff are angels or not. It's about quality of life.

Yes. It's about quality of life. And my relations' quality of life is far, far better in a care home than it was before.

My thoughts also go out to the care worker that these stupid, selfish people have caused to be written and commented about all over the place

I managed a care home for years. Not all relatives are loving and caring. I’ve got stories that would make you cry. Old, disabled and vulnerable people are abused physically, emotionally and financially every day by relatives. The home has a duty of care and possibly power of attorney. She broke the law, barged into the home and took her mother. The home and police did and the right thing. She can have her mother home by going through the right channels.

Here here @ShowingOut. My mum was wandering out of her flat at 4am - luckily there was a warden on duty who stopped her otherwise she'd have been in a ditch somewhere. She was calling us at 3am to say her district nurse hadn't arrived - she forgot there were two 3 o'clock's in the day.

We found out, after a fall caused by a hypo that she'd been having breakfast at 7am, then cooking her dinner at 9am! She'd forgotten what time she should eat and had forgotten she had actually eaten. Her blood glucose was all over the place.

And that was the tip of the iceberg.

If I end up in a care home similar to mum's, I'll be happy. They treated her with respect and care and she had company - which is more than some families manage to do for their 'loved ones' sometimes even before Covid.

It's an awful time for families and those in care homes. But it must be even worse for those living alone whose family don't or can't visit.

I imagine a nurse would never place her Mother into a home that aren't transparent and didn't have an open visiting policy.

The policy they had before lockdown is irrelevant. The home my mother is in was very firm indeed that they strongly believed in a completely open visiting policy. They had no choice but to restrict visiting once lockdown happened, however, and for obviously valid reasons.

Yes. It's about quality of life. And my relations' quality of life is far, far better in a care home than it was before. I'm sure that is true. Is it always true? Not really.

This is a very sensitive subject obviously. I’ve worked in a dementia setting and the need to ensure that proper processes are followed is absolutely paramount. Working with people living with dementia is a hugely stressful job in not only caring for the people concerned but also ensuring that the multitude of different conditions that they may be living with as a result of dementia are monitored. It’s emotionally draining, physically draining and mentally draining. It’s even more so for the families involved and obviously that will sometimes result in people forgetting that processes do need to be followed. Care home/respite staff do not need to be put in an awkward situation where they may be held liable and certainly don’t need to be at risk of physical assault.

The COVID situation has exacerbated what is already a very tough situation and everyone has an opinion on the current regulations but it would be nice if everyone could be a bit nicer with each other.

I was under the impression this was more than COVID. The family don’t have medical POA and woman arrested forced her way into the home. The lady has been in the home for a while with dementia and the hospital she spent time in wouldn’t release her to the family, so something must be going on that we aren’t privy too.

It’s sad, so many elderly are suffering missing their families and there have been a few horrible stories including a home local to me dressing dementia patients up in Halloween costumes.

The woman was arrested for physically manhandling a member of the care home staff as she barged her way in.

@derxa and sadly the same can be said of people who aren't living in care homes. My friend is a chiropodist working out in the community. Some of the things she's seen and heard are horrible. She reports incidents to social services and keeps an eye on people.

But the latest conversation had her in tears. A woman said her family has told her to isolate. She's not heard from them, even by phone, for months. My friend, assuming she was perhaps forgetting calls, did 1471. Last call was in July. The woman said she'd rather be in a home than live like that. My friend is speaking to social services as she's concerned about the woman's mental health now.

Crazy situation but I don't blame the family, they sounded at the end of their tethers.

@Meadow1203

If a care worker tried to stop me taking mu dad out of his home if I wanted to take him I would have shoved her too. The woman is retired nurse and can take care of her needs. Really please don not try and justify this

If you choose to assault someone who doesn't let you do what you want, then you're going to get done for assault.

I'm glad police didn't press charges, but you can't just go around pushing and shoving people who don't agree with you.

@Meadow1203

Chris what a stupid thing to say. She used to visit and spend time helping with her care and at the time no doubt she was in the best place, However she has not been able to be there for the last 9 months and feels she could take better 1 to one care that they are not able to offer. This is not a critism of care homes btw

Why hasn't she been able to visit for 9 months? Did this care home know something in February?

A lot of care homes closed to visitors well before lockdown.

Why hasn't she been able to visit for 9 months?
Did this care home know something in February?
I think it was a typo, in quote later she says she hasn't touched her for 5 months. Whether typo was accidental or designed to inflame...

The situation in care homes in heart breaking.

I havne't seen my Uncle since December. He has advanced dementia. He has no children and my siblings and I are very close to him and his wife.

My aunt saw him sporadically over the summer.

But - I'd rather he and his fellow residents remained protected than I saw him. His home have been fabulous. They have not had any covid. The staff are being so so careful and they take great care of the residents.

The do quite a bit of virtual visiting which must be really time consuming - one care worker/ resident and tablet. Some of the family members (my aunt!!) have needed a lot of support to get up and running with virtual visiting too.

If the family don't have PoA for welfare they could apply for it legally through the courts if they want to dispute the care plan. I'd have a lot more respect for them if they did that rather than attempted to abduct a frail elderly relative.

I've had a lot of experience of adult safeguarding in the last few years. It's very difficult. And sometimes those closest can't see the issues.
And sometimes you get a social worker who is a bit tricky - has happened to our family twice. Both times having PoA meant what we thought was in the persons best interest prevailed.

Moral of the story persuade all of your elderly compos mentis relatives to get their affairs in order and set up a PoA and do so yourself.

If you have relatives that you trust completely you are able to draw up POA for health and welfare cheaply and easily. You fill in a form, sign it, have it witnessed (in the same way your passport photo is witnessed) and then register it for £85. The £85 is means tested so those without funds can still access the system. Once done, if you are incapacitated your designated person makes your decisions and they are treated as if they were your own.

I have one, despite being only 35, because if I get hit by a bus I want my mum to make decisions rather than just the doctors. She knows my feelings on medical treatments and I trust her to carry them out. For example, I don't want to be kept on a ventilator for longer than 30 days. At that point my mum will say to the doctors that treatment is to be withdrawn and the doctors legally must follow through.

If this woman had wanted her daughter to have power of attorney for health and welfare she could have done that. As she didn't, unfortunately the daughter simply has to accept that she can't make all the decisions for her mum.

If the family don't have PoA for welfare they could apply for it legally through the courts if they want to dispute the care plan. I'd have a lot more respect for them if they did that rather than attempted to abduct a frail elderly relative

If you read the story they have tried a lot of avenues first for months to be able to see their mum/gran. And though she has dementia she can recognise family and is always overjoyed to see them. And she's 97. By the time you've gone through the courts she could have been dead months ago.

Moral of the story persuade all of your elderly compos mentis relatives to get their affairs in order and set up a PoA and do so yourself. Well said

@JacobReesMogadishu

It's a safeguarding issue. The woman has demantia and can't consent to being removed. The home...possibly social services obviously felt it wasn't in her best interest to be moved. And they probably have a point, how is her 73yo dd going to provide 24hr care on her own for her mother?

Obviously the lack of visiting is very sad but again understandable.

Understandable because it’s not your mum you can see withering away. People don’t have compassion unless it directly them personally.

Many residents were left to die in the first lockdown. Many didn’t even have a GP visit them to see if their illness was anything else other than COVID.

It’s disgusting and their absolutely will be an enquiry in to how these elderly people were treated by the state and care sector

@Meadow1203

If a care worker tried to stop me taking mu dad out of his home if I wanted to take him I would have shoved her too. The woman is retired nurse and can take care of her needs. Really please don not try and justify this

Then you'd be doing as this nurse did and breaking the law. Assault is a crime which is nothing to do with this virus. I could take my mother out of her care home but that's because I have POA over her affairs but in many cases it needs agreement from social workers if the person doesn't have capacity to make the decisions.

This has happened in the past, with people trying to get their elderly relatives out of care homes and people trying to get their autistic kids out of psychiatric hospitals when they should never have been put there in the first place

Not comparable, @Staffy1. There is no suggestion that this daughter has done anything remotely sensible through official channels - the granddaughter talks about things like going to MPs, but doesn't mention going to Social Services or lawyers, let alone getting all the right equipment, care and medication arrangements in place. If she'd done all of that, demonstrated that she was fully able to take care of herself properly, and still been refused, her actions might at least be understandable.