Mom has 6 children. We've all had the freedom to approach the staff with questions or concerns about mom. This past January, my sister (the POA) was told only she can communicate with the staff. POA doesn't like nor approve of new rule. She tried to get them to change that rule but they refused. What can a POA do? As of now if I visit mom and she feels warm I can not go to staff and ask them to check her temperature. If I hear her coughing, runny nose, I can't tell the staff she may need cold medicine. Our hands are tied. What can we and the POA do?
All the others go through this one family member.
And receiving instructions from six different people, even mom's children, could be very confusing to staff. (Think if you had six supervisors at work.)
Unless it's a lifesaving emergency, have siblings communicate with your sister, who then calls the nursing staff. In an emergency, it is highly unlikely they will ignore a sibling who is in the room with mom.
This is a difficult and emotional time. I wish you peace.
As stated, another option may be changing the medical power of attorney to another sibling who is more readily available.
If you have a concern about your mother, call the POA, express it to her, and let HER call the ALF with the concern. If she doesn't like this new rule, then perhaps she would like to relinquish her role as POA and ask your mother to give it to you instead. Otherwise, I don't think you have any recourse with the new rules.
If you're not all in regular touch with her, you can place a journal in mother's room and record your observations for the POA's information. Assuming POA sister visits often - ? - she can then pick up on any points that seem to need it. And if it's urgent, you can call her and she can treat it as urgent. But ONE point of authorised communication, please, not six different ones.
You certainly can't instruct the staff to give your mother medicine - or at least the staff certainly can't act on your instructions. Do you know what their state regulators would do to them if they allowed that? Not pretty, let me tell you.
At the same time. If a visitor visits a resident and observes that the resident seems feverish and unwell, and the visitor informs a member of staff, I would expect the member of staff to say "oh dear we'll certainly have a look at that." I can't imagine what rule could be imposed to prevent such an exchange of information. But six of you, all chipping in in a free-for-all? Chaos!
Have you all been much in the habit of asking the staff to check your mother's temperature?
What *everybody* can see is that having six people giving their opinion at different times, in an uncoordinated way, is a lousy, messy, chaotic approach to communication.
Your sister cannot delegate her authority as your mother's POA to anyone else, no matter how many documents your sister signs. ONLY your mother can give that authority to anyone.
If your mother is able to create a new POA, she should - she can make one of the other five of you joint POA with your sister, stipulating that the POA should be "joint and several" - then your sister and the new POA can act individually as well as together.
If your mother is not able to create a new POA, and there is no alternate named in the original documentation, then the family had better take advice on what to do. It is not reasonable to expect your sister to manage full-on POA responsibilities alongside her demanding and important job - especially as it prevents her from communicating freely with the outside world.
So happy for you that the situation has been rectified.
I can understand that these busy places don't want to have to deal with a slew of family members. But: they are dealing with FAMILIES, and should be grateful for the concern. I can't imagine why anyone would take offense at a visiting family member who brought something they were observing in real time, to the attention of the proper staff member. There are ways to smooth routines so they aren't getting too many or conflicting signals from people. And take into account that they probably aren't dealing with thirty families who have multiple members involved. You are probably one of only two or three families that is this involved. Keep it up.
At the very least I would advise people to pick an alternate POA in case the POA decides to bail.
good luck-
Im going to copy and paste this message to people that have replied with an answer. First of all thank you to the ones that have been kind, understand my situation and offered information. Those that "added" to my story assuming they knew the deal. Like "we give orders, request to change medications, etc. No "thank you" for you guys. Anyway. I decided to make one message and send to all. First of all, we (kids) have never given orders. The ladies on the hall that actually care for my mom are wonderful. Zero complaints. It's the management that is shady. Due to a personal dislike to a child they think they can go around making their own rules. UPDATE: Letting all know. I called dss. They contacted the facility, told them they could not deny the family their rights to address concerns they observe while visiting. The facility called me and apologized for "the misunderstanding." Lol. It was no misunderstanding. Just covering their tracks. But yes. All rights have been restored thanks to dss. All is good 🙂
i am the POA and so I was the one that had to do it. From their prospective I understand why. Otherwise they would get inundated with calls from all members of the family.
Imagine you're the staff.
Sister 1 says, "Mom is spending too much time in her room. Why don't you bring her to activities?"
Sister 2 says, "Why are they forcing Mom to go to activities, she wants to watch TV in her room."
Brother 1 says, "Mom eats nothing but pastries, cookies, and candy. Don't give her that stuff."
Sister 3 says, "Mom loves sweets. She's 90 years old, let her eat what she wants."
My guess is there is no RULE that says you can't voice your concerns, but rather they're strongly encouraging the six siblings to reach a consensus BEFORE they communicate to the staff and to do so via ONE spokesperson.
ps - this situation happens ALL the time.
Edit - I see that you called DSS and all six of you got reinstated.