My father has two siblings in their late 80s caring for him. He lives alone. One sibling helps with meds and food in the morning, and the other has him over briefly in the evening. He needs more care than they are able to provide, but neither wants to hire a care giver. One sibling has Medical POA, the other is informally managing his finances. I have a Springing Financial POA, but the sibling with Medical POA has told his Drs not to release any information to me, so I cannot get documentation to spring the POA into effect and use his funds to pay for a care service. I do not want to have to seek guardianship, but I wonder how I can make sure my father has proper supervision. Is seeking guardianship the only option? Should I call Adult Protective Services?
Can you make an appointment with an attorney, preferably the one who drew up the springing POA? You need to express your concerns to an attorney. Perhaps the attorney will write a letter to the doctor expressing concern about the medical POA making decisions beyond the scope of that sibling's authority. In my experience, doctors rarely ever like getting a letter from an attorney about a patient.
Go over to see your dad when neither sibling is around and take pictures of his living conditions that support his need for in-home help. Take that day's newspaper with you and put it in the pictures, which verifies the date. Pictures are worth a thousand words, and would help you with both the attorney and doctor.
This may get contentious but that will not be your fault. Shame on the siblings for controlling your father and for treating you like an outsider.
Also, someone younger not older than the person being cared for needs to be the medical POA and they much are older. How can you be sure they have not started having some Alzheimer's and thus not reasoning properly?
Dad is only 73 (from profile) & sibs late 80s? Big family maybe... are you sure elder one is not his birth Mother?? (if female 🙃).
You say this sibling has told his doctors not to release information to you - have you discussed that particular point with the sibling, and explained all the reasons why you do need to be included? It isn't just about springing your DPOA and managing his finances: your aunt/uncle(s) are in their late eighties and sooner or later you are likely to have to take over.
It's also possible that in the nicest, politest of ways they're afraid you might be tempted to run off with the money. Such a suspicion wouldn't have to be anything personal at all: if these relatives are capable and responsible, they're probably also keen to keep themselves up to date on current affairs and will have heard all sorts of nasty stories about elder abuse. It's best to be open about such issues, because then you can set their minds at rest.
As Countrymouse flagged, looking into what is their reluctance to outside care? It's NOT saying they aren't good enough... (may be how they hear it?) but it ADDS more help.
Imho calling APS now is going to seriously ruffle their feathers & lose trust. I don't have personal experience with APS but my Doctor asked me these questions when I was researching for a not dissimilar family issue;
What will APS find? A reasonably neat/clean home? A person with reasonable clean clothes on, edible food in house, rubbish in bins?
Or unkempt squalor, rubbish everywhere, hoarder type situation, unclean person, rotten food & offensive odours?
My relative was ok if Aide present or recent. But frequent falls & lack of hygiene when not.
When caring for people losing skills, mistakes will happen. You don't know they can't manage their own meds until they can't & skip or overdose. You don't know they will get lost until they get lost. I don't mean to dismiss these concerns - they are serious, but have the Gatekeepers changed things to increase safety at each problem? If so, I commend them. They may well add a 'housekeeper' if you keep trying.
If not, you are kind of in the *waiting for a crises* club to make bigger changes.
Welcome to the club.
If these siblings are that close, I'm thinking at some stage they will all move in together. Unusual, but could work? Sort of Golden Girls/Guys.
What sort of things are making you question if the care is enough now? Are there safety issues?
"I am caring for my father Albert, who is 73 years old, living at home with alzheimer's / dementia."
Alzheimer's being the key word. He needs help. My dad had this and his long term care insurance paid for him to have care at home 24/7 with three or more care givers a day.
The elder sibs don't have any authority over Dad's funds though, right?
I'm thinking a meeting with you, the sibs & a Social Worker would get all the issues out to discuss.
It sounds like they are trying to protect him but are misguided. As the Alz progresses he needs more supervision, by refusing outside help they are actually leaving him more unsafe.
They may need someone with authority to explain this to them.
Oh - oh - just saw your post that your dad has had issues in the past with Tylenol over ingestion and walking to the drug store, only to get lost (fortunately someone helped him get home?) So you may have a bigger issue at hand with dad. You need to speak with dad's physician and also a lawyer.
Also, since your dad has Alzheimer's, he needs help.
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