Caregiver agencies, horror stories..?
After 3 months, the caregiver provided by an agency I was paying quit. I made him keep a log of daily activities, and in those 3 months, he never gave my father a shower. He stated my father had "disabilities and limitations". My father walks with a walker, has dementia and some vision issues, but is by no means incapacitated. He just needs help. Two and a half months prior, a physical therapist came in to show the caregivers how to get him into the shower.
I responded back that I was paying him and the agency to care for my father, and that included at least 1 shower in the 3 months he was employed. I have a camera in my father's room and listened to the caregiver telling my father he was quitting. At no point did the agency ever call me that day to tell me he quit. I called them and they confirmed it.
In those 3 months, the caregiver ruined 2 mattress pads with bleach, almost all of his clothing is bleach-stained, cause a $350 fee to a plumber to rod out the toilet (stuffed with wipes, not once, but twice). The agency never paid their visits as stated when I was sold on their services. The owner came by one morning when the caregiver left the country. I told her how he was very defensive, not motivated, etc. She agreed and said because he left so abruptly, he was fired. About a week later, he was back. Yes, I took him back because with dementia, making changes can throw their world into a tailspin. I was hoping the caregiver would have been corrected by the agency, but no luck.
Does anyone else pay an agency for care..? What should be expected from them..?
So stressed...... Worried that it's just me and maybe I should have kept my mouth shut......... Is it just me...??
It was shortly after tthat everything went to hell in a handbasket.
I must have started to doze a little because i heard her get up persumably to go to the bathroom ,when i heard the back door and screen door open, i was instantly off the couch and getting my slip on shoes on snd gave chase. Because gram waas trying to leave off our back deck which has steep steps. Not wanting her to take a header off the deck i grabbed ahold of her coat to pull her back away from the steps. She promptly lost her shit, started yelling for help wheen i tried to get her back in the house i begged her to stop yelling and she procedded to try to break my hand all the while still screaming for help i told her she was hurting me and she said she wanted to hurt me and wrapped a hand around my neck and tried to push ME down the steps. I was by myself because my dad had needed to take one of our cars to the dealer to get it fixed. thank fucking god my neighbor was home she came running over and tried to diffuse the situation which was unsuccessful. an gram booked it to the road and tried to flag down a passing car by standing in the middle of the road , needless to say the frigging cops were called i nearly had a panic attack on the way to the dealer to go fetch my father and I couldn't sleep last night because of nightmares the look in her eyes when she came after me and tried to strangle me will haunt me for the rest of my life, I love my grandma but she was actively trying to kill me and don't had my neighbor not shown up she might have succeded.
We have since found a private person, who was someone in our neighborhood and friend-of-a-friend, who is much better; no they are not background checked or received formal training, but for what our parent needs, they are reliable, and do not try to talk into expensive lunches, sell them things or bad-mouth me.
So my advice is, whether going thru a large chain or local person, be sure to keep tabs on their activities every single visit, and consider leaving a hidden voice recorder device (which was very revealing).