Quote:
Originally Posted by CaptainCrunch
We ran into the same system and were told that there was a long wait list in the public system. We had mom staying in the hospital for nearly a month, and as much as the nurses and caregivers tried its not a great situation for a person with advanced dementia, and mom had become incredibly volatile. We eventual put mom into a private memory care situation, though its incredibly expensive at about $7k a month. But at least she was being more properly cared for.
I will say that visiting a family member in any kind of memory care is a emotional and jarring situation. There were people with advanced dementia that were screaming and crying all the time and lashing out all the time. And it felt like my mom really degraded faster in there.
Frankly there's not a lot of memory care going on. They try to do stuff like games and such but for the most part they turn on the TV and the residents just sit there for hours and stare blankly at it.
But there were some exceptional care givers. I remember when my mom died, the worker that had spent a lot of time with her, and frankly had seen to worst of mom burst into tears, it was a bit heart breaking.
But no matter what your doctor says, and I'm not arguing, but there are not a lot of private beds for the elderly in the public system and they're flooded with desperate requests because private care is so expensive.
I do know that Staywell has shared public and private facilities in their fish creek center, maybe you can put in a call and at worst get your dad into private temporarily and get him out of the hospital.
|
Unfortunately we're in Lethbridge so Staywell is not an option for us.
I'm quite confident that my dad got the shaft from the Home Care nurse who assessed him. She didn't care that my mom was struggling to take care of him and denied our request to have him placed. It took over a year to finally get him approved but, again she didn't care that my mom was struggling to care for him and he is on a long wait list. I understand that there is a shortage of beds for dementia care but some circumstances get into a placement immediately. My neighbour was diagnosed with dementia in fall of 2022 and his wife died in March 2023 and he was placed in dementia care facitlity within days because he was alone in their house.
One thing that is awakening is how many people are affected by dementia. Suddenly I know so many people who have a parent or grandparent that also has dementia.
It's one area that Alberta, or maybe even Canada, is not prepared for. It's going to get bad for some families who can't find a place for their loved ones with dementia.