My mom is getting to the point she can not take care of herself, eat, take her meds, she requires 24 hour care. She has medicare and about 50K in her saving account. We are looking into Medi-Cal and we have done everything we can. When my mom was in a vindictive mood she told me she wanted to be a Ward of the state. Can someone please share with me what that means? Is that an avenue one would take? We want what is best for her. We have tried 24 hour care but that got very expensive and they really couldn't control her. We took her in but she has gotten progressively work with Dementia or Acute Psychotic Episodes. We have been in and out of hospitals--2 different psychiatrists, medical doctors. Her health care want to send someone 1 for 2 hours a day. Help please......Since she can't eat and has lost lots of weight....etc we are afraid people will say we are neglecting her. help!
For elders it tends to happen due to 2 things:
- APS has done an investigation of the living situation & determined they cannot live where they are due to health and safety issues and if no family to move them or elder gets all “not gonna”, then APS petitions the court for a ward status to be placed with court appointed guardian
- elder is in a NH and bills are not getting paid and family not responding to “30 Day Notice(s)” sent to dpoa or family. NH contacts APS and then APS petitions the court as above.
Both can be done by emergency placement... like APS files request and it’s signed off within hours, usually as a temporary ward status which shifts to permanent if no family file to be guardian. It gets reviewed annually by the court.
I’d bet that she said this to you as a “I don’t need you” type of dramarama, ugly statement without understanding that a ward looses control over decisions.
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