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Minimising private care home costs

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  • lessonlearned
    lessonlearned Posts: 13,337 Forumite
    10,000 Posts Combo Breaker I've been Money Tipped!
    edited 8 October 2012 at 2:23PM
    Thanks for the link, Trevor.

    I just googled "Crag, England" and a person came up.

    However, if you just Google Crag then there are pages of links.

    I haven't got time to wade through now but I will definitely have a good look at them.

    When I spoke to Social Services last week the man I spoke to was extremely helpful about the financial side of things. He promised he would try to get their legal department to send me an information pack, atlhough he sounded a bit doubtful as to whether there was a pack as such available to the general public.

    I bet it will be based on those same CRAG Rules which do appear to be what is posted out there.

    Long Live the Internet....It's saved my bacon many times over the last few years.
  • margaretclare
    margaretclare Posts: 10,789 Forumite
    Lessonlearned, did you by chance see this a week or two back?

    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-2208102/Catheters-cause-infection-lead-kidney-failure-The-needless-indignity-thats-leaving-patients-like-Emma-agony.htmld

    I could have written reams about this from my own experiences and those of people I've known. No point in being too modest about this. This practice needs to be re-evaluated in the light of modern knowledge and experience of those who've had it.

    I could have told them this, from bitter experience. I have known people have this done 'because they might be incontinent' but in fact, they actually BECAME incontinent because their bladders became over-sensitive as a result.
    [FONT=Times New Roman, serif]Æ[/FONT]r ic wisdom funde, [FONT=Times New Roman, serif]æ[/FONT]r wear[FONT=Times New Roman, serif]ð[/FONT] ic eald.
    Before I found wisdom, I became old.
  • JuneBow
    JuneBow Posts: 302 Forumite
    I am just too tired today and my eyes are stinging. After a bad day at the nursing home last Tuesday I had a complete melt down. I cried for hours, couldn't get warm and couldn't stop shaking.

    .

    I am just responding to say how sorry I am for your troubles. I shuddered when I read this because when I was told that my mum was going to die I had exactly the same reaction. I don't really drink but I just wanted to drink and drink to numb out the pain and I ended up drinking Southern Comfort of all things. I too was shaking and could not get warm.

    MargaretClare, sorry to hear about your daughter. I cannot imagine how you felt/are still feeling.
  • clemmatis
    clemmatis Posts: 3,168 Forumite
    I could have told them this, from bitter experience. I have known people have this done 'because they might be incontinent' but in fact, they actually BECAME incontinent because their bladders became over-sensitive as a result.

    That was another thing that happened to my mother. When she didn't walk quickly enough after the op. they catherized her to make life easier for themselves (lying to me about the reason), and when the catheter was removed, she was incontinent. Of course, we weren't warned that could happen.

    Lessonlearned, Social Services do use the CRAG Rules.
  • margaretclare
    margaretclare Posts: 10,789 Forumite
    JuneBow wrote: »
    I am just responding to say how sorry I am for your troubles. I shuddered when I read this because when I was told that my mum was going to die I had exactly the same reaction. I don't really drink but I just wanted to drink and drink to numb out the pain and I ended up drinking Southern Comfort of all things. I too was shaking and could not get warm.

    MargaretClare, sorry to hear about your daughter. I cannot imagine how you felt/are still feeling.

    Every summer we get invited to Presentation Day at the college she attended because I give one of the prizes to a student who was similar to her. It has been known for me to manage to keep a smile on my face all the way through it but before long I think 'all these kids, even the Down's syndrome boys and girls who study horticulture and animal care, have something that she hasn't got - a future'. At that point DH and I usually high-tail it out of there to the nearest pub and I drink one, or two, large gins-and-tonic.

    All I can do is to try to interest myself in the kind of causes she was so passionate about.

    DH and I are on the same wavelength, have been from the day we first made contact. He reminds me nowadays that my grief is his grief, what hurts me hurts him. Which is why he was so angry about recent events which he thought were an insult to me - but that's another story and one I don't want to go into. I'm trying hard to put it out of mind, as my stepdaughter said recently 'put it into a box and keep it out of sight, it's self-preservation'.
    [FONT=Times New Roman, serif]Æ[/FONT]r ic wisdom funde, [FONT=Times New Roman, serif]æ[/FONT]r wear[FONT=Times New Roman, serif]ð[/FONT] ic eald.
    Before I found wisdom, I became old.
  • Savvy_Sue
    Savvy_Sue Posts: 46,902 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 10,000 Posts Name Dropper
    Signature removed for peace of mind
  • margaretclare
    margaretclare Posts: 10,789 Forumite
    clemmatis wrote: »
    That was another thing that happened to my mother. When she didn't walk quickly enough after the op. they catherized her to make life easier for themselves (lying to me about the reason), and when the catheter was removed, she was incontinent. Of course, we weren't warned that could happen.

    No one is ever warned that this could happen! I've had a sensitive bladder over many years because of catheterisation. About 5 years ago I had some gynae surgery and, predictably, had a catheter in. Following morning, ward staff came round wanting me to get up and sit in a chair. 'Not until you take this catheter out'. I knew from earlier experience that it feels like sitting on a golf-ball and that my bladder had been more sensitive since an earlier repair of prolapsed bladder. 'Oh most of the ladies in this ward have catheters in for 5 days and they walk around carrying a bag with them'. 'Not me. Go back to my notes and see when the catheter is ordered to come out'. They did so, unwillingly, but came back saying 'it was only meant to stay in for 24 hours' i.e. the morning after surgery, and they took it out.

    All the gynae and bladder problem, prolapses etc, were a direct result of my previous attempts to earn a living, lifting etc. As long as the bladder has a foreign body inside it i.e. the 'balloon' which keeps the catheter in place, it goes on trying to contract and empty itself.

    There is now medication you can get on prescription which 'calms down' an over-sensitive bladder and allows undisturbed sleep - trouble is, this medication also causes constipation and that too is bad for the bladder.
    [FONT=Times New Roman, serif]Æ[/FONT]r ic wisdom funde, [FONT=Times New Roman, serif]æ[/FONT]r wear[FONT=Times New Roman, serif]ð[/FONT] ic eald.
    Before I found wisdom, I became old.
  • clemmatis
    clemmatis Posts: 3,168 Forumite
    No one is ever warned that this could happen! I've had a sensitive bladder over many years because of catheterisation. About 5 years ago I had some gynae surgery and, predictably, had a catheter in. Following morning, ward staff came round wanting me to get up and sit in a chair. 'Not until you take this catheter out'. I knew from earlier experience that it feels like sitting on a golf-ball and that my bladder had been more sensitive since an earlier repair of prolapsed bladder. 'Oh most of the ladies in this ward have catheters in for 5 days and they walk around carrying a bag with them'. 'Not me. Go back to my notes and see when the catheter is ordered to come out'. They did so, unwillingly, but came back saying 'it was only meant to stay in for 24 hours' i.e. the morning after surgery, and they took it out.

    All the gynae and bladder problem, prolapses etc, were a direct result of my previous attempts to earn a living, lifting etc. As long as the bladder has a foreign body inside it i.e. the 'balloon' which keeps the catheter in place, it goes on trying to contract and empty itself.

    There is now medication you can get on prescription which 'calms down' an over-sensitive bladder and allows undisturbed sleep - trouble is, this medication also causes constipation and that too is bad for the bladder.

    I'm really glad you told them!

    On my mother's ward, the catheters were removed post op. But they put hers back in and just left it, and when quite some while later they removed it, they seemed to be surprised, and asked me if she'd been incontinent before entering hospital. (No.)
  • margaretclare
    margaretclare Posts: 10,789 Forumite
    clemmatis wrote: »
    I'm really glad you told them!

    On my mother's ward, the catheters were removed post op. But they put hers back in and just left it, and when quite some while later they removed it, they seemed to be surprised, and asked me if she'd been incontinent before entering hospital. (No.)

    This is absolutely appalling, and it does illustrate how everyone, anyone, needs to be on-the-ball, articulate and vocal, just at a time when we are none of those things and in many cases, are trusting that 'they' have our best interests at heart!

    Did they give any reason for putting your mother's catheter back in, did they ask her?

    I've never become actually incontinent, but I've had years of having a very sensitive bladder with all the inconvenience that goes along with it. Actually nowadays, my bladder does seem to have calmed itself down a lot compared to a year or two back, but it has taken a long time. And I do know of people who have actually become incontinent when they never were before.
    [FONT=Times New Roman, serif]Æ[/FONT]r ic wisdom funde, [FONT=Times New Roman, serif]æ[/FONT]r wear[FONT=Times New Roman, serif]ð[/FONT] ic eald.
    Before I found wisdom, I became old.
  • clemmatis
    clemmatis Posts: 3,168 Forumite
    Thank you, Margaret. Yes, it is appalling.

    I don't think they talked to my mother. They gave me a reason for catherising her -- after they'd done it -- that sounded plausible at the time. Later, the Head of the Trust apologised for my being given the wrong reason -- but of course, not for their doing it; and he avoided giving me a "right reason". And though he didn't say so, he sent a Continence Advisor to the ward, to try to help her. But the Advisor hadn't been told what caused the incontinence, nor had she been told it was sporadic (and so, she was investigating it in a way that worked to make it non-sporadic).
    This is absolutely appalling, and it does illustrate how everyone, anyone, needs to be on-the-ball, articulate and vocal,

    and there 24 hours a day, and expert in dementia, physiotherapy, medicine*, and the law.

    *My GPs, hers, are good, and one is outstanding. He'd put my mother, after some thought, on dosulepin. It suited her well.

    I read her hospital notes daily. I found she'd been moved, without consultation, to venlafaxine, I raised this with the consultant -- an orthogeriatrician. He really didn't like its being queried. All he said, in explanation, was that it was the new thing!

    I suppose it's the arrogance that annoys me, there, though it's also true the new drug didn't help her.

    I was kept going by fellow visitors, relatives and carers, who also had to try to cope with the maltreatment there, and by some terrific patients. But there was a consensus that it was almost impossible to get anything done.

    At least since then, awareness of the way hospitals all too often treat older people, has risen.
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