My mother and I are discussing changing her Power of Attorney for Personal Care to me instead of her sister (who has made it a pattern to try and "pawn off" my mom because she (my aunt) is busy (which she is)), but my mother and my aunt are both a bit concerned about how far away I live. Is a 5/6 hour distance something to be concerned about? I make decent money working part time so I am available most of the time (I work up to 8 hours, 3 days a week when I am in my home city), and even though I don't currently drive I have more than one friend who has said they will drop everything to bring me to my mom if it's an emergency.
Time for some backstory if you want:
My mother has had multiple myeloma since 2013. She had a couple of really good years after her initial stem cell transplant, but her cancer came back in March 2020 and she just had her second stem cell transplant in Sept. I am currently living with her while she get accustomed to having in-home care (3 or 4 hours a day) and since she is post-surgery and low energy from chemo, she needs more support now than she (hopefully) will in a couple of months.
There is no way of knowing if my mother will have great years again, and her health can change very quickly. Once I am back home, I have the ability to get here to her in an emergency (I would probably take 6/7 hours but I could make phone calls during the trip) and I know who locally to her I should contact if something more urgent than that happens.
I want to tell my mom that me living in a different province is not an issue, but I want to be telling her the truth when I say it. Is there more to being her PoA that I'm not thinking of that I wouldn't be able to do from 6 hours away?
Thanks
Her local network is very important, though - can you use the time you're spending with her now to build up your relationship with those contacts?
Where has aunt been falling short? If you look carefully at what she hasn't been able/willing to manage, that will give you further clues about whether you can realistically cope with the job.
It is a bit of a long story but basically my aunt has made quite a few decisions that have more to do with it being easier for my aunt than comfortable for my mother.
I lived with my mother for 6 months in 2019 while I was doing some spiritual growth (that's something my mom had been doing for a while and I wanted to try living by her model) so I am very familiar with my mother, her medical wishes, and what's important to her in her day-to-day schedule.
I did financial POA also from half the state away. Difficult to set up and needed a few trips, but easily accomplished once bills were mailed to me, and with branch banking.