Vulnerable elderly In Laws in South Africa

[MissyB1]

So the in laws live in a retirement flat in a run down town in SA that isn’t particularly nice or safe these days. Trouble is Mil seems to be developing dementia, she’s 86 and Fil will turn 90 this year. He’s pretty great for his age, does all the cooking, shopping and is still driving- gulp!! Of course public transport doesn’t really exist there like it does here.
Anyway Mil has taken to wandering off, it’s happened a few times recently. She gets very anxious and wants to “run away”. Today the Police picked her up whilst she was wandering, luckily she’s home and ok.
The issue is we don’t know what help is available there, what the system is, how it all works. They aren’t all that well off, they manage but without a lot of money to spare. We are in the UK and are struggling to know how to sort all this out. It’s very stressful for Dh as you can imagine,he’s very worried about them. And of course he can’t travel there at the moment.
Any South Africans on here who might advise?
I’m just off loading really as we are totally stumped and don’t know how to help.

Could you contact an organisation in SA and ask for advice?

www.dementiasa.org/
DementiaSA is a South African Non-Profit Organisation (NPO) that assists families, communities and health professionals who have limited access to private health care, to live with dementia or care for those with dementia

Aaah that looks promising Buntysbosom thanks! Yes that’s what we need to do, start looking for organisations over there to give advice.

No country-specific help but my neighbour had a necklace made with their phone number on it, when his wife started to wander. My mil is pretty poorly now, much empathy.

Yes a necklace would be a brilliant idea! Elderly parents are such a worry 🙁 oh and we’ve just heard she’s been carrying her passport and birth certificate with her when she goes wandering!! Apparently it’s in case she needs to catch a plane 🤷‍♀️

Do you know who runs the retirement flats? What does the matron/sister have to say and is she aware of their situation?

Sounds scary.

My brother lives there and his wife’s father had dementia and they had live in help.

So yes we know the name of the retirement complex. They don’t have a website unfortunately but we have found a contact number, Dh will try and ring tomorrow. He’s also going to contact their GP over there.

So what we’ve done for the past couple of years is used private service providers to do some care at home (not dementia care) It was expensive - fortunately the exchange rate helps a lot - but it was the best option at the time.

We’ve recently had to move mum to a care home type of arrangement as it just wasn’t feasible to let her live at home alone during the recent harsh lockdowns. I can’t imagine how your in-laws coped at 90 & 86.

Good plan with calling the GP and complex. Take it one step at a time.

It’s hard to manage care from a distance, but not impossible. I wish you and your DH lots of luck!

@Beetle76 thanks we are going to call the retirement complex today to see if they offer a daycare facility or if not can they recommend one. Although with Covid those probably aren’t open anyway. Otherwise we may need to find residential care.