We put mum into care several weeks ago after living with me for 5 years due to her uncontrollable behaviour. All her clothes were labelled but noticed after 10 days that her underwear was not being replaced, she had enough pants for over 2 weeks. I have read other people's comments about missing garments but I don't feel that this is down to mum, several other items including nightdresses are also missing, as well as garments appearing. Although she has dementia she doesn't have a room on a dementia unit and I feel this problem is down to the staff. It's really upsetting for me as I looked after her well. I am having to sell her property to fund care which isn't cheap and don't see why I should wash her clothes or take new underwear in. All was logged in a meeting we had but nothing has changed. I'm going to visit her today and have another word with the staff. What I don't understand, if labelled why do they get it so wrong. Do you think that I am over reacting?
What I started doing was keeping all receipts for my LO's clothes and taking a photo of them before I put them in her room. If something goes missing, I tell the facility rep and they pay for it.
And yet, and yet...
How big is the care home? How many residents? How many changes of clothes? And how well staffed is the laundry? Think through the logistics and you'll probably be able to see the major flaw in the process.
If you visit regularly and are prepared to be tyrannical about it, you might be able to insist on your mother's clothing being bagged for laundering at home so that it never leaves her room unless it's actually on her. But that means extra work for you and will probably still not be fool-proof.
Show an appreciation of how much work the laundry staff have to do and you'll get a more co-operative response than if you go in there and rip somebody's head off. It isn't that I don't feel for you, but "eyes on the prize" as they say.
To the "line staff:--the aides, nurses, person who delivers the laundry, be sweet as pie. Bring treats and the like. But if the top folks tell you there is nothing that can be done, start looking to move mom elsewhere; if they go along with, at best, poor return of laundry and at worst, theft by staff, what else are they ignoring?
My mom was in a NH for near on 4 years. I can count the number of garments that went missing on the fingers of one hand. This is just not acceptable procedure.
Another thought comes to mind. maybe it's a male sorter stoned out of his mind and holds up a pair of underwaer and says. "This looks like a pair of Mabel's throw them on her pile"
Reminds me of when my hubby was an intern and his superior was Greek. He wrote in a patient's notes "I would write more if I knew more English"