My mum has dementia, she lives in a care home. I visit weekly. She's been in her current home since august and was three years in her previous home, she had to leave because she started to wander out and get lost, they couldn't keep her in and so I moved her to a specialist (locked) dementia home.
I visited yesterday and she was complaining about a mark on her shoe. I asked her to give me the shoe so she took it off and handed it to me. It smelled dreadful and I commented that it was a bit whiff and then looked down at her feet. I was horrified to see that her toenails were like claws, she clearly had fungal nail disease and they had not been cared for or cut in months.
Her bill clearly shows chiropodist charges in February and November, but the state of her nails looks to me like they've been untreated for months. I tried to cut the nails myself but it was impossible without causing her pain.
I went down to see the manager and the clinical lead. The clinical lead (a nurse) looked at the pictures I'd taken of mum's feet and said that has not happened overnight, that's months of disease.
They've promised a doctors visit next week and a chiropodist visit, but it suggests to me that this is symptomatic of a deeper neglect. In my situation what would others do? I'm going to write and complain. It's self funded and costs £1470 a week...