To be appalled at how this woman is treated

[justtrees]

My best friend and I were chatting today. His partners mum has broken her leg after a nasty trip over her dog.
She was in hospital for a couple of days following a bone reset and cast and the staff rang to collect her to bring her home.
Her adult children refused point blank.

His partners attitude was that the government could pay for her care and rehabilitation and meals as that is what they paid taxes for.
Her mum is 65, fit and generally healthy and lives alone.
Her mum is devastated as she has now been moved to a care home miles away from anyone of her family . They visit her once a week and refuse discharge until she is 'perfect' again.
Their mum was a SAHM all her life and devoted her life to her kids. Their Dad is dead. She needs minimal care but physio three times per week. She is mobile on crutches and
Can self care.

They are all shift workers, one with no kids, the others with teens so I'm pretty sure they could have supported her in her own home and offered her lifts or organised taxis between them.

Now my best friend and I go back thirty years and know each other inside out and each others families and hell would freeze over before he would allow that for his own mum and mine for the matter !
He was embarrassed telling me , probably not helped by my face showing absolute disbelief.
It has made me think about my own children and what they would do.
His partner is ok, a bit of a cold fish but he loves her so that's what matters .
AIBU to be appalled or is this becoming the norm now.

so she has gone for rehabilitation?

This.

My 86 year old gran was recently discharged into home care (4 visits a day) following a double hip break 3 weeks ago.

At no point was residential care even offered so for her to be in residential for what sounds like a simple break in a 65 years old means there’s way more to this story than you know.

Without knowing their particular challenges, that does seem harsh.

We are Asian and us siblings have settled within one mile radius of mum, so we can always be available for care.

Mum may need a knee op soon and we have started planning who will move in with her whilst she recovers.

It is great that you are able to do that but does suggest your family are not all working full time jobs outside the home in order to make ends meet - which is the situation for a lot of people.

She needs minimal care but physio three times per week. She is mobile on crutches and
Can self care.

Self care as an inpatient and self care at home are completely different, in one situation you are at one level and have people around 24/7, have meals brought to you etc in the other you are completely on your own.

If she lives in a house with stairs, how will she manage those stairs on crutches if she doesn't have a downstairs toilet ? Is there somewhere to put a bed ? a commode ? ( and you wouldn't believe the number of people who refuse a commode ) and where would the contents of the commode go if the toilet is upstairs and she is on crutches, so how can she carry the contents upstairs to dispose of them ? TMI but the bowls on commodes don't hold that much , so do need emptying at regular intervals !
How will she have a wash , will she manage at the kitchen sink whilst on crutches ? She probably won't manage if she has a bath with over head shower as won't be able to climb in and out safely.
Relatives can organise shopping to be delivered but how will she manage to put it away whilst on crutches, how easy is it to make a meal and carry that meal or even a cup of tea whilst on those crutches ?

Do you see where I am going with this ?

No, we’re all in full time jobs

Mum is still mobile, so the care we’re providing is taking her to doctors appointments shopping, bringing medication, taking meals over, rubbing ointment, etc.

All of which can be managed in evenings and weekends and the odd day off.

All of which can be managed in evenings and weekends and the odd day off.

So how come you need to plan who is moving in with your Mum ?

But did you not question why he was telling you something he was clearly embarrassed about telling you?

He didn’t need to tell you this half story that makes his partner out to be awful. But he did and was embarrassed by it.

The point about having half story is just that. You have half a story. So you can’t say their behaviour is awful.

If she had to go in a home the situation is far worse than he is sharing or knows. Which is why they can’t care for her.

Theres absolutely no way, a woman with full capacity with no care needs was forced to go into a home because her adult children couldn’t care for her or arrange a taxi to appointments. She could arrange it herself.

I would be questioning why he is giving you this half tale about how awful his partner is.

Because she will need a lot more help immediately after the knee op, as I understand it. Hopefully she’ll be reasonably independent again after recovery.

@Perisoire so you and your siblings who all work fulltime jobs are going to share moving in with your Mum to enable her to come home and you hope that her surgery goes well and she recovers quickly, and if it doesn't ? how long can you maintain that situation for ? Thats an honest question by the way, because when it comes to these sort of situations I always look at the worse case scenario as opposed to the best, because the reality is often somewhere inbetween.

She can discharge herself. She doesn’t have to be allowed out like a child.

Still wouldn’t stop her discharging herself with some leaflets about community transport options etc

Of course she can! She gets up and leaves. No one can stop her.

No. You’re completely clear, however you’re also completely wrong.

unless she lacks capacity she doesn’t need ‘permission’ to be discharged.

They can want care in place but cannot demand it.

We’ll have to see how things go. We work locally so it’s easy enough going to work from mum’s.

Mum loves her house, and would hate a care home, so the plan is to keep her home as much as possible, or she move in with one sibling if really needed. Who knows what the future holds, I hope she doesn’t develop an illness that requires her to move into a care home but anything’s possible.

As I said, the situation described by OP seems harsh because we don’t know the adult children’s challenges. But within our current set up, the care that is needed, as described by OP, would not be a problem.

The OP isn’t explaining why the hospital asked the adult children’s permission to discharge a competent 65 year old, but just keeps saying “well that’s what my friend said”. The story doesn’t add up. The friend has misunderstood or is leaving out a lot of detail. It’s possible the mother agreed to the rehab/care home, someone made a comment about the cost and the friend’s partner said “well I can’t go there to look after her, and besides our taxes are paying for this” or something similar.

Unless they have Power of Attorney for her (Health and Welfare), there is no way the hospital would have consulted the children, except perhaps as a courtesy or in the hope that they might step up. If the mother is in a care home (and I think it's more likely to be a rehabilitation ward rather than a care home, per se), it's because she has agreed to it. It doesn't make her family's behaviour any better but I really think you have only got half the story here. Do you think this is a tentative attempt by your friend to get your approval and support to begin the process of leaving his partner?

Yes, bound to be her fault.🙄MN misogyny and ageism strikes again.

My post is neither misogynistic nor ageist.

You only need apply a tiny bit of critical thinking to realise there could be a myriad of reasons why the adult children cant/won't care for thier mum.

The point is the Op doesn't know the full story, but has rushed to judgement.
Same as you.

I don't have medical POA for my mum and she's been in and out of hospital since April (in currently) and they consulted me all along about her various discharges and moves. Both social services and the hospital occupational therapists called me several times.

She does have capacity , so I can't overrule her preferences of course. But they absolutely did ensure I knew what was going on and that I agreed it made sense.

There's no way I can look after her so she knew full well to tell them that.

Yes, exactly as I was saying. The hospital consults the family but, without a health and welfare POA, this family cannot make this sort of decision for their mother and cannot instruct the hospital about what has to be done. If their mother was genuinely distraught, she could have handled the situation and facilitated going home herself. It all smacks of conversations that have become distorted by several retellings, misunderstood snippets of "information" and a bit of "Well they said so and so I said so and so. I wasn't having any of it" also. I was full time carer for my mother for 10 years. The hospitals I dealt with have been unfailingly sympathetic and helpful but at the same time, they won't be bullied or manipulated or told what to do by family members. They don't have the time or the resources.

I suppose if she had an upstairs loo, steps to the front door , that hosp regs might say another person must be available.
And cos family busy she has to go to a care home.

This also happened recently to someone I know. Adult children refused discharge for them to cate for their elderly father, but for different reasons - work commitments and travel distance to his home and they wouldn't take him into their home.
So in the end the hospital moved him to a care home.
Again, from what I know he didn't really have high level care needs but couldn't go back to his empty home.

YANBU

They sound like selfish pricks and I’m guessing that because the mum didn’t go back to work, they got used to her putting their needs above their own. Sadly, I’ve already seen this happen with a few of my friends adult children. I’m in my late 50’s.

When I was a young teen, my mum had to leave her job in order to care for her mum at our home. Granddad had died and Grandma had dementia and needed full time care. Sadly, both my parents died quite young, so I’ve never been in that position but I know I’d have done anything for my lovely mum.

I’m currently supporting a friend who has moved back home to look after his elderly (80’s) mum who has dementia. He’s had to change his job and go p/t 15hrs a week and work from home in order to care for her. His older brother doesn’t want anything to do with caring for her and has left it to Bob to sort out everything. Bob isn’t married but used to have a very full social life with many friends which has slowly diminished because he can’t leave her alone for very long. We’re currently exploring any respite options he can access as he’s getting very run down mentally and I worry about him.

Yes I agree also a backstory here which you probably don’t know about. Also I do think that hospital/ care services are terrible for seizing on any living relative for the elderly or ill and trying to make them take responsibility for serious amounts of care when actually this is not possible. Sometimes they just seem to want to tick a box to get the relative out of hospital without putting proper support in place. Not letting them discharge her into their care could be to stop this happening.