I am so happy for those who have your support.
Reality for us was people yelling at us to let our brother die ( a bystander had told the EMS that he had terminal lung cancer with brain metastasis... not true.. 2 years later they still cannot find the cancer on the CT.
After we insisted that he be supported until we saw an MRI (negative CT was not enough).
When we finally got the MRI head, they still insisted that he was dying and that we had to get hospice (we had to take hime hime with us and hospice would give him 2 baths a week. Other staff would come according to their protocols ( I had a knee replacement, husband had a stroke, daughter had foot surgery, sister in bad shape and her husband legally blind shizophrenic) and I had 3 houses and 3 yards to care for additionally - our house/ yard,
sister’s house yard, daughter’s house/yard.
The purpose of social workers/case management in our town- is to get people out of the hospital.....period.
When my brother in law broke his hip, we called adult protective services and told everyone.... to protect him from early discharge.
As it was, my sister wound up in ICU and the bil was added to my household ( I was already over 70 and moving beds down stairs for all these invalids to sleep).
We were blessed.
I don’t know how the truly helpless survive all this. I am trying to remember how I got it all done ( yards and housework went by the wayside as I had 2-3 total baths daily for my brother, at keast 3-4 loads of laundry daily, a lot of floor cleaning, cooking and clean up, medicines, doctor appointments, getting supplies( mostly from amazon as they deliver) etc.
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Will a social worker help if you want to see your mom & sibling is preventing any contact?
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Help from a social worker? REALLY????????? My experience with social workers (in the hospital and in the nursing home) was horrible.  No help at all--the most any of them did was hand me a booklet with a bunch of advertisements in it.  Everything was about $$$$$$$$. I have a friend who has a degree in social work and she gave me more help and advice than I ever got from the social workers who are PAID to help.  One social worker was appalled that my mother called a physician a nasty name.  My mother was 87 years old and had dementia.  That social worker was either stupid or incompetent.  She obviously needed to find out more about elderly patients with dementia.  Of course, I also had problems with the physicians--one doctor gave my mother her discharge instructions and apparently never noted that she had dementia.  What an idiot!! Watch out people--that doctor is still practicing.  Scary!!!
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I feel like my husband and his siblings could use a social worker or case manage to oversee his fathers care. He is 89 and lives alone. He is fiercely independent so it is very difficult to take direction. He has Alzheimer’s and is loosing track of time as well as being able to communicate effectively. I feel like he needs an in home evaluation to determine concerns. He is respectful of authority figures and if he trusts the authority we think he will take direction from him ,however he does not have enough confidence in his primary doctor for us to rely on him for direction. I know there are many resources out there but need help navigating what can help us out now and as he declines. I also am not clear if this is a service that Medicare would pay for, as a benefit of being a veteran or if we would need to pay for a social worker.
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My small town does not even have a social worker for elderly care.
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