But there’s also a caveat….of course….
We met with the AHS nurse for about 1.5 hours this morning (Friday). She was lovely but her hands are so tied. More about that later…
She was fine to conduct an interview with my husband and myself on our side of the house, instead of quizing my Dad. YAY! and WHEW! All she had to do was “watch my Dad walk” which took all of a few minutes. (I think he acted a little feeble!) But yes, he was unsteady. We got him up early for nothing in the end. Ah well, maybe he’ll have a good night’s sleep!
Sadly, she knew nothing about dementia. That made no sense to me since one would think that a lot if not the majority of caregiver hours in our province must go towards people who are dealing with dementia. Perhaps AHS management needs to um, manage stuff like this….just sayin’.
Also, she hadn’t read his file. She said that her job is very very busy and she just didn’t have the time. One would hope that would be part of her job and management should maybe…oh I dunno, manage better.
OH OH and none of the online tools to manage doc appointments, medical stuff and see test results, etc can be accessed by AHS. Yup. Just wow. ONLY if you end up in a hospital can they see your records and ONLY from that time you are in the hospital. um, what? So no, they cannot see his medications nor his blood work nor his dementia diagnosis nor his skin cancer, etc etc etc.
But the upshot for us is that she is going to go to bat for us and attempt to max out his caregiver hours. This is huge and amazing for us and means we might even be able to go out for dinner just by ourselves! We can go grocery shopping and not have to rush home to make sure he’s not alone! We can free up my time to sort music (HAH) and tidy up my loft (another HAH). We can go for walks and bike rides and really move! We’ll know by the end of this month no less – amazing! Apparently, my heartfelt email to her really moved both her and her manager so thank goodness for that. And my list of daily and weekly tasks we perform for my father stood us in good stead since she can use that to convince her manager. SO glad I did it.
And yet….he does not qualify to be put on the waitlist for a care home at this point so we need to explore other options through Greater Edmonton Housing and Sage. Both of these provide subsidized housing.
We can have him assessed of course (yet again and by a different department…sigh….) to see if he meets the criteria….which he does not….
This is where it gets sad (fair warning people).
Once someone cannot feed themselves, cannot use the bathroom by themselves, wanders off by themselves and gets lost regularly, starts fires on their stovetop regularly, cannot dress themselves and basicallly is almost non-verbal…then and only then, will they put that person on a waitlist. And yes, the wait is up to 12 months.
Even if he falls and is returned to us from the hospital, they would rather supply us with a lift in his bedroom and bathroom than place him in a care facility. Yup, you read that correctly.
But here’s the heartbreaking moment from this morning…. It costs $5000 to even be considered for a wait list. Yes, we can afford this but clearly not everyone can. This is a new cash grab idea from our government that did not used to exist by the way – we did not have to pay this for my Mom. Again at the risk of repeating myself, yes you read that correctly. And then it costs up to $3000 a month after that.
Our case worker said they actually have to disqualify people who truly need the help simply because they don’t even have the initial $5000 bribe (oops, I mean cash grab) to even get on the wait list. And there it is.
Hope for my Dad, myself and my family rises. Hope for our society fades. What a double edged sword. This is so wrong on so many levels. Not only do you need a persistent advocate but you need money just to get basic help. That’s just wrong. We need to do better.
I think I need to start a youtube channel about all of this….
