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My sister has severe dementia, which has been confirmed by the Public Hospital where she has been receiving care for the Flu.
Her husband was admitted at the same time for chest pains, and Flu which has escalated to pneumonia. He is also on dialysis do to kidney cancer.He is being placed in Hospice.
I am 70 years old, live out of state, and cannot provide the 24 hour monitoring that my sister needs.
My niece, their only child, is a teacher, also from out of state, and has taken time off to try and arrange care, but she cannot take my sister with her when she returns to her home.
My sister's apartment is in a terrible state, and the power is about to be turned off, because she is incapable of performing billpaying, and her husband has been too ill.
We are trying to get the husband to sign a power of attorney so the daughter can access the funds they do have, and make arrangements for gaining access to their Social Security to pay for a long term care facility.
In the meantime, the hospital wants to kick my sister out, with no care plan in place. Can they? Or do they have to find a care facility to take her?

You have to use the words “unsafe discharge” and keep repeating that over and over and over again as many times as you need to.
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Reply to Bulldog54321
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A hospital cannot release a patient who is in need of 24/7 care and monitoring and requires help UNLESS that help is available. The person who is now in charge of all this is your niece. She is the one to work with the social workers to tell them that she will not be available to care for her mom in the home. That NO ONE IS THERE and that any discharge to home now constitutes "unsafe discharge". She should put this in writing to the social worker and those exact words should be used.
Discharge planning is part of hospitalization. They will threaten. Important to tell them that any "unsafe discharge" will be returned "BY ambulance IMMEDIATELY to the ER and that JCAHO (Joint Commission on Accreditation of Hospitals) will be contacted re 1. Unsafe discharge knowingly done
2. Early return to hospital.
These are two things that can ding the licensure of a hospital and that they must keep track of and report and that can lose them Medicare funding.

That's her power.
BUT if she says she is home and mom can temporarily come home, then she's DONE.
And where is this Hospice? Is this in facility? Because if Dad is home then they will expect there to be 24/7 caretakers, and that mom will be cared for by them as well.

Good luck.
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Reply to AlvaDeer
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Your BIL can assign you POA for him but not Sister and with Dementia Sister can't. If both are being placed, you do nothing with the SS, you allow the facility to become payee and the payments will go directly to the facility. They will have no excess to bank accounts and do not hive it to them.

You need to talk to an Elder lawyer about splitting ur parents assets. Sister can be transferred directly from the hospital to a Long-term care facility. Its called an "unsafe" discharge to send Mom home with no care in place.
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Reply to JoAnn29
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They can’t just kick her out. They must find a facility that will take her. Believe me they will do it. They are all afraid of lawsuits.
From what you described she most
likely will be placed in nursing home.
You have the right (POA) to change
nursing homes if you don’t like it for
some reason. It’s stressful.
I know. Good Luck.
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Reply to Vsvechin
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Call APS in sister's State immediately and tell them what you have said here.
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Reply to mstrbill
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No, they legally can’t. This is a guilt trip on family. If there are no family caregivers and no money then they arrange for state guardianship and a nh.
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Reply to PeggySue2020
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