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My sister has poa. Up until a couple of weeks ago my sister and a caregiver were taking care of her in her home. My sister can't handle the burden anymore and has sent her to a home. She can afford to live home but my sister isn't willing to do the work to find another caregiver. We are having a conflict of interest here. What rights do I have?

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Sounds like there's more to this story. You say your sister "wasn't willing to do the work..." but she's being doing a huge amount. She was doing home care, which is a massive job that is understandably really impossible past a certain point, for many if not most people. Sometimes a nursing home really is the best solution, and even "sending" someone to a home is a huge amount of work -- finding, interviewing, setting up, handling the logistics. You haven't mentioned what your contribution has been...?
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Here is a similar story. My 92 year old mother in law has been in a nursing home in a small town for four years. She is mentally fine but physically unable to live independently and has been since she began falling about five years ago. My husband and I have prepared for our retirement and will be fine if nobody leaves us a dime. We live out of state and my husband hasn't been back to the town of 25,000 since before college (to live). My BIL, two years older, has never left this town. He is the 'long suffering one' who is 'there, doing everything'. The two of them together have POA/DPOA but my husband never questions what his brother decides for the most part because we do respect that he IS the one 'there'. We live in a big city, with fantastic health care and beautiful places that she could be. My BIL has said in the not to distant past that he had not prepared for his retirement and he considers his mother's money a big part of his 'plan'. So he has flat out stated where his head is. ANYTHING, and I do mean ANYTHING that we suggest might be better than where she is sets him off the deep end. He will quit speaking to her of she crosses him, will hang up on my husband, will bad mouth us and our motives to anybody who will listen.
When my FIL died five years ago, the brother told my MIL that due to the fact that she had given him POA he could force her to go into the nursing home! MIL griped to my husband and then would cave when BIL got pissy. So she has to a great extent
'agreed' to her bad treatment. My husband feels horrible for his mom but I have repeatedly told him that 'there are no victims, just volunteers' here. She has had an option to come live near us (although now it's past the point) and we would be more than willing to care for her. But that would mean giving up control of the checkbook (by BIL), having the perks of her being there (she repeatedly picks up the check for dinner together, for their gas for driving her places, I am sure for much more than she ever used or needed from him. She is very generous and there are definitely pluses for him to have 'access' to her. Believe me it is very possible for the person who appears to be very giving and self sacrificing to use the parent in their care.
It touches a nerve for alwayslearning to jump so quickly on a person who simply asks a question. Some of us enjoy being martyrs. There is a payoff in having seeing folks think of us as so giving.
All WE want is the best for my MIL but I don't really see that with her other son.
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Let me add that my BIL immediately after FIL's death forced the sale of MIL's home of 50 years, everything in it too. He sold her car, which he told her he 'didn't want because it smells like piss'. He showed her the receipt for her life's accumulations and treasured things after the estate sale, knowing she would find it to be much less than she thought it would be. Made her feel as if her nice things were pretty much nothing. I didn't also mention that before the nursing home she was in AL. So when she got there, since he'd sold everything, all her personal furniture and belongings were gone.
He is in the funeral business, sells stuff other than the casket to funeral homes, too, so he pushed and made happen a big deal funeral for FIL - laying him out when he had definitely stated and written down that he wanted direct cremation. There was a commission in this for him. Now that my MIL is in hospice he is doing the same thing, insisting that we 'don't know how to grieve' when we say that we want to honor her wishes not to be on 'display'. It's sickening. I can't tell sometimes what matters more - his greed or his need to control everything. It has totally made a shambles of my husband's relationship with his sibling.
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Please get an attorney. You mother need someone to talk for her. Do not allow the state to have her as much as possible. They do not care about the person just want their money and get paid from the estate when the person die. My father is in the hands of the state and they are not taking care of him for example, it appears they want him to die as much drugs they give him. They give him drug for him to sleep during visiting hours. Do not want him to communicate with his family. The care giver do not the family to attend the family appointments, go on doctors visit, take my father out to see his family, go with him to the hospital. He is at the hospital by himself. They took away his visit to VA hospital and now he cannot talk to his friend. He give my father to one of her doctor. I pray the Lord give my father back to his family. The state do not want to let go of him. The care giver is getting paid $75 - $100 a hour. The state cares nothing about the family. Please get you mom back in her home if possible, please. I will be praying for you and the family.
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Joanna, what has your role been to date in your mother's care? Do you live in the same community? See her daily? Take over weekends and vacations to give your sister respite? If you've had close contact, how has your mother's dementia progressed? Does she need help with activities of daily living? How much supervision does she require? Is her personality at this point pleasant or is she combative and uncooperative?

What is your mother's financial situation? You say she could afford 24/7 in-home care. That would be at least $250 per day, more than likely considerably more, depending on the nature of her dementia. How many years could she afford of that? Is the "home" she is in now Assisted Living, Memory Care, or Nursing Home? Is she self-pay? How long will her money last where she is? Did your sister open a phone book and throw a dart, or did she do some research to select a good fit for Mother at a clean, safe, well-run place?

If 24/7 in-home care were hired (3 sifts per day or live-in or whatever), who will supervise these people? Who will deal with it when one calls in sick? During their vacations? BTW, two caregivers are NOT enough for a person with dementia. Are they each going to work 12 hours a day, 7 days a week? Is that what your sister was doing? Managing full-time care is a burdensome job. It sounds like your sister can't do it. Have you discussed with her your willingness/ability to do it?

I hope that you and your sister can work together to come up with what is best for your mother that will also work for your sister and for you. I suspect that there is more to this picture than the few details you've presented. Perhaps there is more than your sister has been open about.
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I write this as a witness to my life in hopes it builds empathy.

I have been aging in the same time period that my two parents have passed through years of mental health and physical health issues. My stamina and courge has depleted during this time. My job skills to work in the outside world have become dated. If any of these things are true for the person who has been providing the care for a loved one, I ask your mercy and compassion for when they state they have had enough. There is a psychological term "compassion fatigue". We are subject to it. I am feeling it. I noticed yesterday when the agency that brings me caregivers on Fridays called to change the rules and ask for some change in our system I OVER REACTED. i flipped. i was grouchy.

I am entering a dangerous place and I need to find the exit. So I am in exactly the space you have described. I know I can no longer care for my mom. Some of it is physical, a lot of it is mental. Twisted part of my not wanting to quit is financial.

I moved my kids 2000 miles and enrolled them in new schools to be here for mom and if I give up, they may have to change schools again as I can not afford a home in this area.

IF MY brothers are compassionate, they will realize that this will not go no forever and they will let me live in the family home, even though we will move mom to board and care, they will work out some kind of credit from the estate for services rendered and some sort of debit from the estate for future rent and taxes on this home. That will give me the breathing room to update my skills before I dive back into the world of work. Maybe my kids and I can paint the house and replace the carpets and get the yard in shape for the sale of the home in the next few years so when they graduate it is ready to sell. I know we are on tap to clean out 50 years of junk in the closets and doors. This is a momentous task. The key I believe is to get them to witness "a week in the life of a care giver". Not until you try and change a feces filled diaper in a handicapped stall with no sink in a public place, do you have ANY idea how rough this can be. Not UNTIL you have to put locks and buzzers and bells on every door and latches on every exit AND they escape anyway! do you know how 24/7 this job is. So if I am no longer joyful and grateful for the"free rent and lovely view, and good schoolds" that living in mom's house has afforded me, you have not been watching what it has been costing me personally. And if you are not noticing me-- I guess I DO have to throw a fit to get my way and get my needs met.
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I, too, would like to know if you are/were helping your sister in any way at all. I have a sister who does nothing to help; in fact, she makes things worse because she is so immature. All she wants to do is to be "kept posted" but nothing more. Unlike you, I do have POA and have exclusive decision making rights but I also am there for EVERYTHING. I also work full time and if I can, I try to take on dancing gigs, but my personal time is very, very limited, and when my mom is sick, it's even worse. Last winter I was so tired from an illness that she had that I was in danger of getting seriously sick myself, but my sister did NOTHING.

If you are helping your sister, then when you go see an attorney about this, you will have more leverage, otherwise, you may not have a leg to stand on.
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I too am experiencing compassion fatigue, and even though I have gotten some help, a lot of the burden and responsibility comes back to me. Maybe I put some of the pressure on myself, but it's hard for me to understand that not only are some of my siblings deserting our parents (and a sibling) but I feel they also have deserted me. I know I don't have it as bad as some of you, but even so, I can see how some reach the point where they feel they deserve the complete inheritance, especially if they've basically sacrificed 10 or 20 years of their lives, and have been unable to provide for their own retirement.
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You can hire all the outside help you want but the responsibility and wear and tear comes back to the spouce .Untill you have done it you cant give advice, I ruined my health before i put my spouce in N home. By all means put her there but dont desert her when you do, you will have guilt a while but its no other way.
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A blessing to all you caregivers out there who sacrifice so much for your loved one. No one understands until they've been there, night and day. As compassionate caregivers, we are generally glad that we can help, but physically and emotionally it does take its toll. And even though we may eventually have to place our loved one, the caregiving does not stop, it just changes. I recently placed my developmentally disabled sister. I'm still grieving, but she needed more help than my sister and I could give and still preserve our marriages and family life. I still question our decision because it has been several years that she has depended on us and it's like going through withdrawl. We also paid for outside help, but as has been said, sometimes they don't show up, sometimes they don't do much, and you're paying out the gazoo for them. Honestly, if you haven't been the one that's there, I do not feel you should criticize the one that was there.
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