Sister excluded at end of life care

[Mrsm010918]

Now I will preface this by explaining that my sister has quite severe learning difficulties in that her mental age has never progressed past that of around a 12 year old. She does however, have capacity to live alone and maintain relationships.

My mum has just been hospitalised and 2 masses have been discovered in her brain. The doctor is looking at it being secondary cancer so not a long life expectancy at this point.

The problem is nobody is bothering to keep my sister updated. Her and my mum haven't got a great relationship, it's superficial at best, but DSis does keep in touch and tries to visit etc. My mum is never welcoming with her and its all rooted in the fact that DSis is in contact with her dad. He's done some pretty awful things to her over the years, as well as to the family as a whole but ultimately she contacted him and she won't be told anything bad about him. This has been ongoing for at least 15 years now.

Mum has laid in hospital saying she wants nothing to do with DSis on her deathbed basically because she doesn't want any info getting back to her ex husband. DSis is ringing round everyone trying to find out what's going on, what the treatment will be etc and she sounds genuinely concerned rather than on a phishing expedition.

AIBU to find it incredibly harsh that everyone is blocking her out in this?

Even though it may mean she doesn't get to say goodbye?

My eldest brother agrees with me but the others are against her knowing anything

I'd ask your mum if she's happy for you to tell your sister what's happening. I feel for you I really do.

Thank you for all of the responses, I am trying to take all of your comments on board and some have given me some perspectives I hadn't considered.

This is not something that my mum is being badgered with, she was actually the one who brought up that she didn't want to see Dsis. In no way would I want to be trying to reason with her about this in her current situation, I think my dad may have tried but she is adamant. There's no bedside drama about it as far as I'm aware, it's just the wish was expressed to us and naturally we had discussed it away from mum.

One poster said about my Dsis being an unpleasant reminder - I think you may have hit the nail with that comment. Although my mum has actually been married 3 times and had my eldest 2 brothers with husband number 1, Dsis with number 2, and then me and my younger brother with my dad. My eldest brothers have never been excluded in the way Dsis has been so its not about her 3rd marriage being her 'real' family, I would probably lean more to it being a trauma response maybe- Dsis is the image of her father. They maintained a superficial relationship with basic birthday and Christmas gifts and the odd visit.

In terms of whether Dsis has a diagnosis or not, that's really not relevant. She has very obvious struggles in some areas and needs constant support with anything resembling life admin, at the moment Citizen's Advice help her a lot. Her capacity to live independently involves her being able to cook, clean and manage her money enough that everything is paid. She is classed as a vulnerable adult.

I will respect my mum's wishes in making sure I don't give any information which would enable Dsis to go to the hospital. If pushed I suppose I'll have to explain that she is not wanted and live with that.

A mum who is at the end of her life, and if her wishes are to exclude her dd due to feeding back of info to her ex, then she's well within her rights to do so. Even if she isnt at the end of her life tbh. Why do her dds wishes trump hers? She can see who she wants to see.