It’s a home care role and I attend to an elderly lady for a morning call. She’s scheduled to have 45 minutes to get out of bed, showered, changed, change the bed, breakfast, medication, pots away and quickly mop the bathroom.
She has a psychotic disorder which can affect her moods apparently and it can make her very up and down, according to her son and colleagues I’ve met.
Apparently she will also try it on with new carers, which she may be doing.
My calls with her often end up running way over, because it can take her up to an hour to get out of the bed. She’s also very overweight and I really struggle on my own.
I’ve been told to be firm with her verbally, which I try to do and I do tell her I have other calls to attend to, but I’m not going to shout at her or verbally abuse her.
We aren’t allowed to lift clients either but given her size I would not be able to anyway.
Yesterday it took over an hour to get her up from the bed and I had to call for another carer to come and help me in the end. The carer and a visiting nurse said that this lady really should be a double call and hoisted, that it’s far too much for one person to do. As a result I was late for all my other clients and it’s not the first time that’s happened, it isn’t fair even though I’m not blaming the lady.
However other carers claim they manage to do it and say that I just need to ‘be firm’.
The office themselves know she ‘plays up’ yet say I just need to shadow another carer getting her up. Also it’s hard for me to tell if she’s genuinely struggling to stand or just having me on and trying it on.
It’s making me dread going to her calls and I feel like I’m not doing very well at the job if the other carers can get her up, but the office won’t put her as a double call. What else could I do?