More Hospital Help is Needed. Get Out Your Checkbook..

If your parent or loved is hospitalized and not able to walk or ambulate safely, you may want to consider staying with them during the overnight, or hiring private duty care for them during the overnight, 11pm to 7am.  In my most recent experience with my mother in the hospital, February of 2013, this shift is very understaffed.   It is sad indeed, but it is the reality of today's healthcare.

My mother was admitted with bronchitis, a-fib and a very poor oxygen saturation rate.  She was also suffering from congestive heart failure.  She was hooked up to IVs, a catheter, and oxygen.  She's no longer able to walk or move about with a walker.  She is in a wheelchair,  Ironsides all the time.   Good thing she looks nothing like Raymond Burr!  (A.K.A. Perry Mason).

If you are unable to stay during the overnight with your parent or loved one,  start researching the best options for private duty care for the overnight shift.  My greatest fear was that my mother would need to use the restroom.  She'd keep pressing the button for help but no one would come quickly enough.  She would try to get there on her own....  This is a huge hip fracture train wreck waiting to happen!

Thanks to the owner of her boutique assisted living facility, we were able to hire overnight help for a fraction of the going commercial rate, yet another advantage of the "boutique assisted living model of care".  We would have paid double to hire an agency.   I told my mother that the government was paying for this...  A friend of mine calls this a "therapeutic fib"...  I'm sticking to the story.  I'm guilt-free at this time..

I had peace of mind that someone was always with her during the overnight.  This person could chase down the one person on the floor who was authorized to assist her to the bathroom.  Please note that whoever you hire cannot physically help your loved one to the bathroom.   This is against hospital policy.   Liability issues.  Make sure whoever you hire has a loud voice and can move quickly!  Make sure the person you hire has passed the President's Physical Fitness Test... 

So you think I might have covered all the bases....  Think again... A day or two into this arrangement, I'm told that my mother is not sleeping during the overnight...  What's that about?  I ask her about it.  Is she in pain? Is she worried about something?  What's the deal?

Guess What?   She's staying awake all night to make sure the "government hired caregiver" stayed awake..  Heaven forbid she falls asleep and the caregiver sneaks out to the bar or takes a nap.  My mother wanted to make sure the government got their money's worth...

My mother is a brilliant, courageous woman who served her country for 18 months during WWII in the Navy Nurse Corps. She took care of many paraplegic Marines returning from the war while stationed at St. Alban's Hospital on Long Island, NY.

She volunteered when Eleanor Roosevelt threatened to draft nurses and my mother's wonderful father said the Navy was the best place and she'd better sign up.  Prior to this, She earned her R.N. from the 

Sisters of Mercy at Mercy Hospital in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and after the war she earned her Bachelor of Science of Nursing Degree from the University of Pittsburgh..   Few women earned a BSN in the 40's.  She's amazing indeed! And, she's my mom!