Hospital Incarceration

[Barquentine]

I am having an argument with my wife. Her mother has been in hospital five weeks after a fall at home when she broke some ribs. Local council rang to arrange 'discharge care package' which they said would be free for up to 3 weeks. Then her mother would need ongoing care to help er with essentials etc - not 24 hours, but overnight and a few hours daytimes. Next day council called back; the free package had been turned down so we would have to arrange private care (her mother is over the £23/- odd savings).
I will not shorten your lives with the Kafkaesque Sisyphean Augean mess of inconsistency and contradiction wife has endured trying to get this sorted.
I told wife - let's get your mum (who wants to leave) home. She is fed up of lying in hospital bed all day and all night with no radio or TV and nothing to do.
Please tell me it is quite impossible and my wife is obviously wrong that a hospital can hold her mother (who wants to go home and we want her mum home) against her will and ours. Things cannot have become so Fascist while I wasn't looking? I've luckily had no contact wit any hospital for 20-30 years (apart from FiL and MiL over last 4-5 years).

[Barmaid]

If her mother has capacity, then the hospital cannot hold her unless she is sectioned.

[Peter Pedant]

Barmaid is right
no acute medical wards are ever locked

Your mother gets off her bed, and walks out of the ward. and then off to her home

but that is not QUITE what is happening, is it?

[david small]

They cannot detain her against her will. She can discharge herself if she sees fit.

[Rosetta]

Whilst they cant prevent discharge as per Barmaids post, they may be dragging their heels as they know how difficult full time care can be, particularly on your wife

[Barquentine]

Thanks Barmaid, Mr PP, David & Rosetta. I had forgotten about sectioning. So, has has been diagnosed with vascular dementia but most of the time is lucid and just lapses every now and then (we're trying to spot a pattern - may be when she is tired). A year ago though she had hallucinations, paranoia and suicidal thoughts because her neighbour (who apparently wants to steal MiL's tiny terraced house - despite having moved away to a much bigger, detached house) had moved next door to us when MiL came to stay to get away from the loud music and 'radio station' being broadcast from the house next door. Consultant psychiatrist sent her to a local place and that's when I discovered that even if you are only a danger to yourself the State can lock you up. Did you know that killing YOURSELF used to be the criminal offence of "murder" ---- laughing-face emoticon----- just how retarded, primitive and embarrassing were our ancestors? (Rhetorical) How could we, as kids, have ever been so deluded to look up to such forgettable forbears? (also rhetorical). I think, given some things we witnessed during "lockdown" including the egregious effrontery of the British Criminal Constabulary, it's time to get tooled up to break elderly relatives out of cramped, untidy 'wards' unhealthy with noxious moisture its very breath double pneumonia and fuscous with a mixture of smells.

[barry1010]

Suicide is still a criminal offence is some countries, and has been at some point in history in most countries.

[Peter Pedant]

This is a care issue and nothing to do with incarceration and chaining people ( little old ladies) to radiators

[Peter Pedant]

suicide was a ceime - self-murder and caused chaos when the Prime Minister Castlereagh did it in 1822
er to himself

prime ministers were different then

[Barquentine]

Awesome Peter Pedant. I retract some of what I said. Maybe some things about the good old days need a comeback. Love the name by the way. When I was 14 and my sister about 10, she scolded me: "You are such a pedant". "No, I am not", I retorted, "You just make a list of all the times I've been pedantic".

[jno]

you can still be charged with assisting suicide, so you have to kill yourself on your own, loved ones mustn't help.

[Barmaid]

OK, if MIL has vascular dementia, there may be a doubt over capacity - although I do accept that vascular dementia can be transient or can impact on only certain areas of capacity at its early stage. I do not know to what extent she can make a decision as to leaving hospital as laid down by the Mental Capacity Act 2005.

The MCA 2005 states that one is presumed to have capacity unless it is proved otherwise. Capacity is action specific - thus someone might have capacity to decide where they live but may not have the capacity to deal with their own finances. If she does not have capacity to decide to leave hospital and go home then it is not quite so easy.

Reablement care should be available for up to 6 weeks - this is NHS funded, but care thereafter will either have to be privately paid or funded by the LA.

Frankly, if she has the money, I'd employ a private care agency and get her out of hospital asap. My personal experience of dealing with elderly relatives in hospital is that if they are medically fit for discharge, they do better in the surroundings of their own home than stuck in a hospital bed.

[Barsel]

Would your wife agree to her Mother going into a care home?
Please don't have her sectioned and put into a Mental Hospital, they are dreadful places.

[Barquentine]

Thanks Barmaid. Yes privately funded care now in place. But it has been very complicated to arrange. There is no central, authoritative, individual at a single department that has a clear, consistent narrative for those of us with zero contact with this world before. One council person telephoned on a Sunday. Said 3 or maybe 6 weeks care at no cost might be available - (3x30min visits and 1x45min visit). Within 18 hours of that call (4pm - 10am) he called back to say (I think he called Re-enablement) the free care had been refused. The reason (which I pressed him for) was, if I followed him correctly (not easy to understand due to how strong his accent was), because she would need longer than 6 weeks to be 're-enabled' we must go direct to arranging private care. So an NHS bed was blocked for an extra three weeks while my wife and I (well, mainly my wife) learnt from scratch to navigate the labyrinthine imbroglio of contradictory information/assertions & half-understood (by the council 'adviser') paths through the quagmire. We set out quite clearly the hours we would need - so they sent a list of council approved care agencies - with quotes based on the wrong hours (my wife stopped me sending them a very facetious response explaining multiplication and addition) and with each quoting on different bases. The table clearly stated "weekly" to which some agencies put £2,700.00 or £1,900.00 or whatever, and others putting hourly rates. It is utter chaos. My wife somehow remains serene and calm in the face of egregious idiocy. My anger at how unexpectedly bad things are is inducing me to think of unconventional leftfield methods to shock them into getting things back to how they were before the Collapse. When enough people have had enough, the backlash will be tsunamic. It has already begun in tiny ways with the number of strikes going on.

[jourdain2]

I'm sorry you've had all this Barquentine. I was told there was no medical reason for keeping my husband in hospital - it was an infection, not the same thing as you - but it took me getting fed-up of waiting and getting his coat on him and physically walking out, before they stopped me and worked out the paperwork/medication etc.. Meanwhile others are waiting for his bed.

My Brother-in-law collapsed in early April in huge pain and with 1 ltr. of fluid on his lungs. We STILL don't know what is wrong with him, despite biopsy 2 weeks ago. He is on strong morphine to enable him to eat a tiny amount (he's lost 3 stones). He is home with a nurse calling every other day to change the bags collecting fluid from his lungs.
The NHS is truly, truly appalling. Be afraid - I am, now.

[david small]

Many will suffer unnecessarily, and many will die before this bloated carcass of a euphemistically named the National Health Service succumbs to the inevitable.
Start again needed. Not top heavy with managerial ticks biding time for their pension. Achieving nothing but more superfluous meetings.