My mother has fallen over again and arranging post-hospital care is an ongoing nightmare. We have young Hungarian carers who don't speak good English, e.g. they can't form negatives correctly, and they are not trained to deal with dementia. They are not the re-ablement team and so they don't have the remit of getting my mother up and about again. They are fine dealing with a routine of bed care and strip washes. So I will have to be involved in superintending them and this is quite a worry for me because I am not trained either and in fact I am very clumsy with my mother. They are good because they have no issue with her, while feel as though I don't want to let her get away with being such a big, demanding baby - she's continually asking for the curtains and the covers to be arranged and making a fuss if you touch her feet.
Needless to say, the level of care visits she now has, 2 people, four times a day, is extremely expensive, and it was left to me to arrange it and figure out how to pay for it.
Today (Sunday) I got a visit from an NHS OT (yes on a Sunday, quite strange) who gave me some advice about putting mum in a chair sometimes, getting a chiropodist, and a GP visit. She made me feel a lot better and as though I haven't been left with sole responsibility for this troubled woman.
Today (a week later, Monday) we had an unheralded visit from a District Nurse, so it was the sheerest good luck that I was there to let her in.
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