My husband’s mother has dementia and is considered no longer able to make decisions for herself. She has 3 children: my husband, his older sister, and younger sister. Their father is still living, in a nursing home, but of sound mind.
The younger sister has Medical POA for their mother. She has conflict with the older sister, and they have never trusted each other. My husband has been able to maintain mostly good relationships with them both, but because of that, his younger sister is very suspicious of him too sometimes.
Their mother was recently hospitalized, and at first the younger sister and my husband were both on the list to have permission to talk to nurses/doctors. Older sister asked their mother if she would give permission for her to talk to them, and she said yes, so she was added to the list.
Then a doctor called older sister instead of younger sister to talk about their mother. Older sister told the doctor he needed to call younger sister, which he did. Now, younger sister thinks we are conspiring to take away medical POA from her behind her back somehow because of one misplaced call from a doctor.
Now, everyone is off of the list, except for younger sister, and when my husband and older sister call the hospital, they are told they can’t get any info and have to talk to younger sister. But now, younger sister also won’t answer anybody’s texts or calls.
If my husband’s father called the hospital, would they also deny him any information? When it comes to Medical POA in general, does a spouse have rights that are equal to or supercede it if another family member has it?
We’re trying not to involve him if we absolutely don’t have to, because we don’t want to stress him out, but we may need to if younger sister continues to shut us out.
Thanks in advance for your help!
1. One doctor must declared the individual incompetent,
2. Two doctors must declare the individual incompetent or
3. Sometimes the DPOA is immediate - not as common.
Look at the Medical Power of Attorney and usually in the first paragraph it will tell you what it takes to spring the document into effect.
Once a POA has been activated then the person listed as the 1st Agent will be the one making decisions for the individual. If the 1st Agent is not able or available to make decision then the decision will go to the 2nd Agent and then the 3rd Agent (if there is one.)
Although the Medical Power of Attorney can prevent you from getting information they can NOT prevent you from visiting your loved one. I have often been involved in working with family members who have been told by the POA that they can not visit their loved one. A POA, both medical or financial does not have the authority to prevent someone from visiting. A Guardian can sometimes have that authority if it is written into the guardianship.
In order to stop someone from visiting the hospital/long term care facility would have to be able to show that the individual's visit with the person/resident/patient was having a negative effect of the individual. Only then can the visit be stopped.
Final thought: I would remind the POA that you are not trying to take over, in fact when you got the call you immediately told them to call her. This should show her that you respect her position and that you are not trying to take over.
Good luck!
Would you like it if your mother in law tried to change yours?
Bottom Line: The charge nurse and the floor nurse do not have time to talk to and give updates to more than one "relative" or "authorized representative."
I have only one sister, and I am the POA and the Health Care Proxy for my mother (father passed away many years' ago), but I always put my sister's name down on the HIPPA form as being able to get info.
I'm the one who manages the healthcare. I cannot tell you how many times my sister has not told me that she called the hospital and talked with the Nurse, or called the nursing home and talked wth the floor nurse......did not tell me....and then I called....and then I ended up talking with someone who was busy and trying to accommodate me but not thrilled about having to repeat the same information twice.
I did try to manage this. The nursing home knows that I am primary contact, POA and Health Care Proxy. The nursing home knows that my sister and I do not communicate well together. They know that they are never supposed to call my sister first. But, that cannot stop my sister from calling to ask for info and then not letting me know.
It is a common situation, but what's most important is that the person who has the legal authority to make medical decisions has to make sure that the the hospital knows NOT to give medical info unless they have tried and cannot contact that primary person.
She should be careful considering that she may need help from the family sooner then later and she is creating a situation that no one will want to be of any assistance to her. She will be reaping what she has sown and that will be very said for her.
We have respected her role as medical proxy. We just wish she would still keep us informed, especially about major decisions. It’s very frustrating and hurtful.
We’re crossing our fingers that things work out for the best with the move. All we want if for her to be well cared for and for her to find some semblance of comfort in her final days.
Ask her to talk to a lawyer to see her rights in your area but this could also be seen on line in some places maybe then she will relax a bit - if she won't answer your calls then hubby may have to write her a letter
When she complains, surprise, surprise! That's what is involved in being a POA.
My SIL was POA for her Mom. Early signs of Dementia and spending money she didn't have on stuff she would never use, like trips. SIL got it all straightened out. Sold Moms house, got her in a good Independent living with meals, transportation and activities.
Then comes along younger sister. She wants to know how much of the sale of Moms house was she getting, now. Then, like ur SIL, took Mom and had SIL dropped as POA and her assigned and then...she did nothing. Bills were not getting paid, etc. SIL was able to get it switched back to her. Not sure what her sister thought POA meant. SIL took Moms phone away because "mom" was keeping in touch with the scammers that were taking her money. Little sis turned around and got Mom another one. SIL did set it up so Mom can only call certain people and only certain people can call her. Its just all the aggravation.
So, I do know where ur coming from.
I think the younger sister is being childish. The doctor made a mistake and the older sister corrected it. If OS has not done it yet, she needs to give a copy of the POA to the Hospital.
I was POA and I don't think when Mom assigned me it was with the idea of keeping her other children out of the loop. It was because I still lived in the same town. POA would have been given to whichever child was the closest. When it came to my Moms health, my brothers were told how she was. I felt they had a right to know how there Mom was doing. Now finances, my Mom was never secretive about her money. My brothers never outright asked but said if she needed anything call them. I guess I was lucky that they trusted me. We all new we would not inherit. We all told Mom to spend it.
Their mother actually made me and my husband financial POA, and warned us that younger sister was going to have a problem with it but it was definitely what she wanted. She was right, and younger sister went behind our backs and tricked their mother into signing financial POA over to her last year. The good thing was that mother was already in a nursing home and I got her qualified for Medicaid, and I had already handled all of the business to settle her assets (there few to start with and none left). If younger sister only realized how much of our own money we spent to make sure mother was taken care of.
I should have known something was up, though, when my husband was taken off the list yesterday. Older sister finally got in touch with younger sister, and it turns out she was moving mother to a different nursing home, a half hour further away from us, without even discussing it with anyone! We’re so concerned that the change at this stage of her dementia is going to be so disorienting for her.
Did I mention that younger sister is wheelchair bound, and poor, and requires assistance with all of her own activities of daily living? Lord, help us!
Are you local to the hospital? If your husband can visit his mother in the hospital, I bet the staff would talk to him. We had a similar issue very recently—my FIL was hospitalized for an extended period and my BIL is in charge, he’s the POA and he’s the one that the hospital is authorized to talk to. One morning the hospital called my husband thinking they were calling his brother. When my husband said he was the other son, the man on the phone refused to tell him anything! Freaked us out honestly because for all we knew, he was calling to notify my BIL that FIL had died! Turns out FIL was fine but anyway........whenever we visited my FIL at the hospital, the staff always talked to my husband and told him what was going on. They even answered my questions.....so while they wouldn’t talk to anyone but my BIL over the phone, they had no problem talking to us when we were there in person.
We’ve actually gotten an update from younger sister since my post yesterday. Turns out she blocked us all out because she was in the middle of transferring mother out of the hospital. However, instead of bringing her back to the nursing home she’s been in for the last 5 years, she decided on her own to move her to a new one, another half hour away from all of us and out in the middle of nowhere, because it has “nice scenery.”
Turns out she was just using the doctors misplaced phone call to deflect while she carried out her plan. Now, we’re really concerned that the move will be so disorientating for mother that it will cause her distress. It’s also harder for us to get there, which is I think what she really wanted. We were all together at the hospital last week when a doctor asked us if mother had dementia, and younger sister said no. She’s refused to accept it for a long time. (Mother has a prior mental illness history, and younger sister has always been in denial.) Well, she finally told us last night that mother’s recent MRI said she has mid to late progressive Alzheimer’s, which any fool who spent any time with her could have told you.
I wonder if the official diagnosis had something to do with her decision to move her to a new facility.
Now we finally found out last night that she took it upon herself to have their mother transferred to another nursing home after being in the previous one for 5 years, because she think it has better scenery. We’re so concerned that it will be disorienting and distressing for mother. There’s nothing we can do now, but try to make the best of it. It’s such a sad situation.