He is in the Memory Care side of a personal care home. In my state, they are slightly different than assisted living.
IN the past when he has had foot wounds, they have ordered the Bayada RN to come and look at it. I am going to talk to the DON about this. The administration of the facility changed last year and I am a big fan of the new admin, but it seems now most of the nursing staff has left to follow the old ED, so they are using a lot of agency nurses. I really miss the continuity of care and I hope they can find some stable employees soon.
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@compmom, my mother received her first vaccine on 1/3 and will get her second on 2/3. This was organized by my sister.
My mother lives in an independent living facility and is deeply lonely as a result of the isolation. They are organizing vaccinations for all residents, but my sister moved faster than they did. Iâm hoping ShawWife and I can get vaccinated in time for my motherâs 97th birthday in May.
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DH has to make another trip to WI. His mother (turns 92 in March) went back in the hospital while he was there, so managing brother (Pharmacist) sent DH home. We got DHâs car repaired (he hit a deer on the Jan 2021 trip up about 40 miles from his WI home town- we paid out of pocket to repair; $1360; two deer ran into his vehicle also in WI summer 2020 and that went through insurance, $5600). MIL got strong enough in hospital to walk but is balking at home with walking less than 10 steps from her bed to the bathroom with assistance. She has a lot of health issues, and her heart is not functioning well. Between the dementia and her attitude, she may need to go into skilled care soon. DH is getting new tires tomorrow and will go up the next day again. DH and his brother are sorting things out - and if DH canât get his mom to cooperate better, and the other son who lives about 5 hours away coming to talk to herâŠAt least I can stay home, keep working, and not be treated like an evil servant which has been her attitude once dementia started about 3 years ago (I think BIL realized she wonât do any better for me even though I could help with her home care as a RN). An uncooperative attitude is what it is.
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@SOSConcern it sounds like itâs for the best that you have to work 
I moved to the location Iâm in now 11 years ago. I was without a job and had some relatives that went through some very challenging medical situations. I was available and able to help out.
I feel very blessed and grateful that the plan for me at that moment was to be helpful. Iâm glad that your husband has that availability for his parents at this time.
Update - MIL is cooperating better at home so she is walking more (very short distances but the essentials) and her wounds are healing.
DHâs car came out of the shop and he got new tires as well. The front sensor to inflate the driver air bag was about 1 1/2 inches away from the impact site, so we dodged a bullet with not having the insurance claim and much larger damages. DH will be in WI on Saturday.
So with a happy family surrounding her, MIL should be doing well (including great grandchildren who are there for 4 months, ages 4 and 7).
Until the next health care âcrisisâ.
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In my experience, once the air bags are deployed, the car is totaled unfortunately. So definitely dodged a bullet.
@deb922 Feb 2020 his prior Highlander was totaled due to airbag and we had to replace vehicle way earlier than we wanted. Now 3 deer and 2 incidences later his 2018 Highlander is good again as I described in the recent post. This is his 3rd trip to WI since Dec and 4th since getting his new to us 2018 Highlander.
So MIL has a MD appt on the 15th, and MD is going to tell her she needs nursing home care. All the brothers talked tonight, and TN brother most likely will make another trip/stay for a week so he can see her before skilled care - due to Covid restrictions who knows when that will lift. Other brother has a trip planned as well (he is 5 hours away). So with family around she is enjoying the time now. No need to burst the bubble before the 15th. At one previous point in a moment of mental clarity she had said she was willing to go into nursing home care. DH and his Pharmacist brother cannot hold things together at home with her - as DH said, they are kicking the can and they canât prolong the move.
So hope the transition goes smoothly.
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Oh that is tough to do during COVID. But it sounds like all the siblings are on the same page? I imagine that is great (I am an only, so no one to fight my decisions 
).
Hoping your MIL has a smooth transition to nursing care.
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It is the same facility her H was in - and it is nice with very good care. Once the Covid stuff lifts, it will be better too. We just have to keep reminding her that Jeanne (her caretaker that died - had a stroke and probably then threw a blood clot at home, died immediately at 70+) had a lot less life and she (MIL) is very fortunate.
My dad has a computer and knows how to send and receive email. But when he got the email about how to sign up for a vaccination appointment he was flummoxed as to what to do. (Yes, we should have used one of our own emails and done it for him and then called him with what to do. Since we havenât seen him in months due to the lockdown, itâs hard to gauge his mental and physical capabilities).
So he just showed up at the vaccination site after he got the email saying he COULD make an appointment, but without an actual appointment. Thankfully, after begging, someone took pity on a 94 year old WWII veteran and gave him the first shot. He was very stressed out about the whole experience.
I would imagine there are a lot of the elderly in a similar situation. Lots of elderly people can function alone but are not very fluent with how to use computers. And the phone number to call for an appointment in his county was always, always, busy. I know. I tried for hours.
These planners are just not thinking or they donât know many elderly people. These are the people who need the vaccination the most and yet they set up byzantine computerized appointment systems that the elderly have a hard time managing.
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Well, the system is made for the masses. Old people are supposed to be in nursing homes and guess what? Not all of them are. Surprise, surprise. You arenât alone.
Thank goodness someone had good sense to give him the shot and didnât resort to ârulesâ. There are still good people in the world.
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Our state finally realized that - duh! - they canât reach all seniors for those exact reasons. So they are finally staffing phone lines for vaccine appointments.
My mom and stepdad both finally got their shots. A problem they had at first was that they share an email address, so after my stepdad registered, my mom tried to register and they said that email had already been used. She ended up making a new email account, which was then problematic because she forgot how to access it. Since we live in the same county, if I had used mine, when my turn came it would have caused issues.
Well, my mom is in the hospital with COVID, although they plan to discharge her today. Just got a call that they sent dad to the hospital with suspected COVID too. I am amazed that it took 9 months for a cluster to hit their community.
Iâm a little peeved that they took him to the local hospital instead of our preferred one which is 20 min away. The facility has our preferred place on record but tell me it is ultimately always the EMS decision. I guess I canât really get him transferred now.
It feels so helpless to not be able to do ANYTHING and to be at the mercy of hospital staff to tell me everything.
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So sorry @surfcity , It is so hard to be out of the loop.
EMS always goes where they want, but still, if you had a choice on file you would have hoped that the facility would have done more to get the right one.
I agree that it is very difficult for many seniors to access the appointment systems alone. We have a few mass clinics for seniors (70+) and they require not only registering and getting an appointment, but also getting to the drive thru (or worse, park and walk) clinics, showing the QR code on your phone, and waiting. It took my nephew getting the registration, winning the lottery for my mother, nephew sent to QR code to me, I sent to my brother who was taking her to the appointment. It was at the baseball stadium which is 10 miles from our house, but not at home plate but WAAAY in the back parking lots, which then puts you in an industrial area of downtown (railroad tracks, warehouses, lots of new construction of apartments for young people). You could not walk or take public transportation (although a few seniors did ride their bikes!). This weekend they are doing another senior (over 70) clinic at an indoor sports event center, and the seniors do have to park and walk in. They are trying to arrange transportation for some.
Bad news is that many seniors canât do this process alone. Good news is that they are filling every appointment slot with a 70+ year old, so doses are not going to waste. Itâs not ESE fair, but what is?
This morning on the Today show, they had the head of Walgreens talking about Walgreens getting 100,000 doses direct to their pharmacies and those are for minority communities. They admitted that their registration programs (email or apps) are difficult for the targeted communities to use. One of the moderators immediately said, âwe need to have our civic clubs organize to help these communities, like the fraternities and sororities, not only to register them but to get them to the facilities.â I could tell she was going to make that happen.
It may have been with hospital room availability, however EMS may decide to go closer just because they have a lot of calls and have to get to next one.
If coming from a facility in our area, we tell EMS which hospital to take the resident.
Here ambulances take patients to the hospital in that zone (usually closest but not always). Causes a lot of issues with insurance, specialty care (childrenâs hospital, heart specialists).
Agree @twoinanddone some hospital offer services that another doesnât.
Sometimes a planned ambulance ride to a more distant place will maybe need pre-approval or extra cost.
Things have gotten complicated. I definitely want âcontinuity of careâ with hospital/services but sometimes it just doesnât work out, especially in a pinch.