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Recently, we discussed the difficulty that clients and family sometimes have separating excellent home care from a particulare Home Care Aide. When we, at Support For Home, have to make a change, sometimes family just has a hard time accepting it.
Recently, we had a case of a Home Care Aide not showing up for an assignment. Unfortunately, it can -- and will, at some point -- happen with the best senior care agencies. The real crux of the matter is how the home care agency handles it.
This was a client undergoing dialysis on a regular basis, and the day in question was a dialysis day -- but the employee failed to show up. Under California penal code section 368, that is a potential criminal offense for the individual. We covered the assignment and got our client to dialysis.
When the employee called, the next day, we informed her that she had "self-terminated" her employment with Support For Home and that, as she already knew, it would be reported to the authorities.
That is bad enough. The former employee behaved in an ethically reprehensible manner. It is up to the authorities whether they deem it to be something they will prosecute. For us, there is no alternative. She is no longer an employee. We cannot trust her and will not subject any client to such potential behavior.
However, the family member of another client for whom she provided services actually wanted us to rehire the former employee. That person was unable to take an objective view and realize the potential jeopardy the client might be in with someone who already demonstrated a willingness to abandon a dialysis patient. Our answer -- it's not going to happen. We will happily lose a client before we will hire back someone who behaves in such a manner.
So, it is Saturday afternoon, and we answer the phone at Support For Home, as always, 24x7. But today we get three very interesting phone calls in a row, from the same person.
A Home Care Aide Applicant calls. She wants to talk to our HR Manager. Well, the HR Manager is not in the office today (neither are we -- we're answering from home). "No, we don't use voice mail, since we always answer the phone. But we'll take a message or you can call back Monday." No message. She'll call back Monday. Two minutes later, she calls again, thinking she'll "sneak" past us and leave a voice mail for Carlotta, our HR Manager. "No, we answer the phone 24x7, so you won't get to voice mail for her." OK. Two minutes later, the same person calls, but hangs up when we answer the phone. So, I call her back and tell her that she is not making a great first impression.
Well, it turns out, she is not trying to make a good impression. It turns out that she has a criminal record, and our HR Manager said, "No, we won't hire you." So, what she REALLY wanted to do was tell our HR Manager that she had found a job, anyway -- with IHSS, the County agency that provides caregivers to low income recipients. She wants to gloat about that.
To us, this is a very sad thing. In-Home Supportive Services (IHSS), a government agency, has hired her to provide home care. We would not hire her ever, based on her background.
Now, we are fans of the program IHSS, in the Sacramento area. Low income seniors need home care. What they do not need is caregivers that cannot pass the background screening of Support For Home. We hope this woman's clients through IHSS receive great care.
In California, all homecare agencies, whether medical (home health) or non-medical are mandated reporters of elder abuse. Abuse can take many forms, however, from "simple" neglect (benign or otherwise) to physical or financial.
We will be talking about some of these issues in several upcoming blogs. Today's focus is on financial abuse of seniors. There are many good Internet resources on this topic. A few of them:
For us at Support For Home, this is a very personal issue. Many of us have seen episodes of attempted -- or worse, successful -- financial abuse of seniors. Our Director of Client Services even wrote her Master's thesis on this topic.
It is one we make sure our Home Care Aides are sensitive to, not just in terms of avoiding anything that could be interpreted as abuse, but also awareness of the signs that it may be occurring. One of the dangers is that when an elderly citizen reports issues -- items missing, not as much money as they used to have, ... -- some people might simply dismiss as "forgetfulness" or "senior moments". This must not happen. If there are signs of possible abuse, they must not be ignored and must be looked into by the appropriate people.
There are far too many stories of financial abuse by the caregiver population, whether family, "friends" or employed. We are dedicated to ensuring it does not happen on our watch.
If you have stories to share, lessons we can all learn from, please let us know.
Best wishes, Bert
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