Hello all. Everyone on this list is so helpful that I thought I would ask your advice. I live with my elderly father and I work from home. We have a Home Health Attendant during my work hours and I wanted to know if anyone else is in the same situation and how you handle it. At first our home health attendant was providing 24 hour care. But the fact that I live here made it easy for her to say that she was going to discontinue providing 24 hour care and only come during my work hours. The problem is that our HHA thinks she runs the show. My family hired her I had nothing to do with the process. As I mentioned I work from home and Im required to have a quiet work environment. Our HHA is very loud. Between my father having the TV turned up at full volume and their loud conversations its almost impossible to work. Very often she will take things upon herself without asking if it is okay to do whether its buying too many things or telling my father what he is going to do for the day without even asking me.
I just wanted to know how others deal with their HHA and if you have any advice for making it all run smoothly.
I also suppose that she wants to keep her job and she wouldn't want to admit to a boss that she let her client fall, (especially to a hysterical boss).
How should you have handled it? Here is one better scenario, in my mind:
You, racing into room, putting hand over heart: "Oh my goodness! I am so glad to see things looking normal! I heard loud thumps and I was really worried. Whew! What happened?"
HHA: Your Dad was reaching for something and lost his balance. He started to fall but I was right there. I stopped him from falling, but we did bump into a few things!
OR
HHA: I'm afraid that your Dad fell when he was reaching for something. I was right there so I broke his fall and his landing was not very hard.
You: I'm glad you were there for him. Did you notice if he bumped his head on anything?
HHA: I'm sure he didn't. He did hit his shoulder pretty hard on the railing, though.
You: Dad, when you are through in here HHA and I are going to look you over and see if you have any bruises. HHA, please call me when he is ready.
That is one way I imagine would have been better. It is not how you handled it and it is not how HHA reacted. So now we know that you are both human and neither one of you perfect. I hope that doesn't come as a big shock. :-)
Very often fear is expressed as anger. That was a pretty frightening noise you heard. Cut yourself some slack for reacting with some hysteria.
Personally, especially if this HHA has been doing an acceptable job, I think I would apologize. "HHA, I'm sorry I shouted at you this morning. I was so worried about Dad I guess I got carried away." Then drop it.
It is a fact of life that old people fall. They fall at home and in care centers. They fall alone and when someone is with them. Unless they are actually pushed, it is seldom anyone's fault.
What to tell your siblings? You know them and their likely reactions. I think I would mention the fall but not the drama. "Dad had a falling episode yesterday. He seems fine, we don't think he hit his head, but he has a big bruise on this left shoulder blade. His behavior is his usual, but I'm keeping an eye on him."
Some people are trained to remain calm in crisis situations. Unless you have had training as a first responder or an ER staff member or a kindergarten teacher your "calm" button probably does not immediately kick on. I'll bet you'll get a little better at that as you have more experience. But don't beat yourself up over this event!
I am now actively looking for someone to replace her. She has gotten too comfortable with us and is setting her rules of when she come here. I need to dig up some phone numbers given to me by an acquaintance.
What I'm trying to say is.. if the paid caregiver knows that we're softies, they will walk all over us. Even when I confronted her about her duties (be inside with father) and consistently arriving late (so I'm late for work too), she still does things her way. Why? Because I'm all talk and no action. So... as soon as I find someone, I will tell the current paid caregiver that she's no longer needed.
And I agree - if your siblings refuse to give you the authority to rule over the house -including the paid caregiver - then you're just another caregiver in their eyes. They don't appreciate you being there with your father. Ideally, your siblings would agree to give you authority. Then either have a phone conference with them, you and the paid caregiver (or an actual meeting) and they tell her the situation and understand that she's being disrespect to you and not doing her duties, etc.. And it's up to you whether you want to keep her or not. At the moment, it doesn't look good for her. Then they tell you both that you both need to settle it between you - but that you have the ultimate decision to keep her or not. That should shock her into reality or not...
Tell us about your siblings who hired her. Do they want you to be miserable and humiliated? (My best friend's siblings WOULD want her to be miserable and humiliated, so tell us if that's the case.) We all want you to talk to them, and put an end to her A-H ness and petty tyranny. HHA's aren't that hard to find. Good ones may be harder to find, but with any new one, you could lay down the law on day one. This B-h is now untrainable because she has gotten away with it for so long.
Honestly, being around her is going to ruin your health and shorten your life. You deserve better. Please call your siblings and tell them you need a change now. Otherwise, you should run away from Dad and let them make other arrangements for his care.
When she says, I don't like being bossed around, reply "Really? Then why do you boss me around? If you are not willing to do your job as I ask, you should find another job. That's how jobs work. You get paid to do what your BOSS tells you to do. I live here. I'm not the employee, you are." When she gets angry, say "Mary, you seem to be upset. Would you please step outside until you are calmer? It is upsetting Dad and me, and we both need a peaceful home."
When she says, "I'm not cooking, You cook!" Ask her, "Isn't cooking part of your job? Why are you telling me to cook? Why would you think that it's all right for you to give ME orders?"
If it turns out that your siblings have given the HHA from hell the idea that she can act like this, then you need to let them decide how they will care for Dad without your help, and Get Out. God bless you.
Make a budget for her, get the reciepts. start returning the excess back to the store. I did this once! If there are no reciepts, take the stuff back and get store credit. She will get the message. Get some good ear plugs, if you are not on the phone all day. (or tutoring at home, etc.) Give her written warnings with a 30-day review. Start acting like you have some authority over the situation. If you believe it; so will she!
During my busy season, I hire a friend to stay with them from 9 am till 4 pm. It's just way too expensive to pay for any more hours than that. And we make it work one day at a time. Outside activities are difficult because they are both totally incontinent and in wheelchairs. One is 24 hr oxygen, the other has Alzheimers.
To clarify one point, if she is no longer there 24 hours, is she being paid for 24 hours or 8 hours? I think you should tell her to work 10 hours, at least!
Is she a friend of the people who hired her? Who hired her? Can you talk to them? You are naturally very grateful that they have provided a person, but the HHA needs to understand that YOU are her employer in the home. Her job is not to care for you and your needs, but it is to care for your father so that you are 100% free to work and earn a living while she is there.
I like writing dialog for people. If you have trouble thinking of how to respond to her, give us a few specific examples of things she says and does, and I will make some suggestions.
Am I wrong, or are you a person who tries to be considerate all the time? Are you baffled by her behavior, because she is so inconsiderate? Maybe if you can get into the right mindset, you can become more comfortable setting boundaries with her.
I too worked from home while caregiving my husband. Our aide was fabulous. She got him up, helped him bathe, got him dressed, teeth clean and hearing aids in. She did his exercises with him. She took him for walks. They did jig saw puzzles together. I know they are not all as good as ours was, but you need to have one that is at least satisfactory.
On the loud television -- I couldn't work with that, either. I got a wireless headset for hubby -- he liked that he could hear better, and could even keep listening when he got up to go to the bathroom. :-)