help wiyh father - PLEASE?

[INDIGO94]

help with father - PLEASE?

My father was just diagnosed with vascular dementia on 4/3/08. He was in the V.A. hospital and they were having to clear all his medical through me first as I am the next of kin, (only child and he was no longer married). My father's sister (who doesn't like me) was told by the doctors that I am in charge as I am the next of kin. She went home and dug up an old power of attorney that my dad gave her in 1987. She then had him moved from the VA hospital the next day and to a nursing home. My dad had been living on his own and still driving up until then. He hates the nursing home (I understand why the doctors said he can't live on his own anymore) he was kicked out of the first nursing home in 2 or 3 days and is now in the second one, they are having problems with him too. He is getting angry and escaping every chance he gets and now is hitting and kicking. They have him so drugged up. The problem is my aunt has finacial POA only but she has told the nursing home NOT to give me any information about my father and I haven't even been able to talk to him since the day after they moved him there, they always say he is sleeping or in the bathroom or something. My father is 70 and he has no money and no property or anything. He is on social security, medicare and VA benefits. No one had medical POA because he was declared incompetent before we could get one. What I want to know is as next of kin what rights do I have to my father and his care? I can not afford an attorney right now and am still raising my own family. Any advice will be appreciated. Thank You!

 

[katlowe]

Go to your local commission on aging or elder care and ask them to help you. What I saw my father go through before he died from many complications but also had dementia this past spring and he was in a nursing home and striking out but was doing that before he went to the nursing home. Dementia is a horrible disease that robs a person of their mind. I feel so badly for you having just buried my step father in September it's still pretty fresh in my mind. You can get a court ordered HCPOA and also ask for financial POA dependant on the circumstances. You can also go to the social security administration and apply for the disability checks and they will go over the information with you and what needs to be done but I would start with the commission on aging and elder care and social services in your area. Social services will give you many helpful resources and a social worker will be appointed. We had to go through all of this as well and it was a nightmare and such a long and drawn out process and then his oldest daughter accused my mother of neglect when my mother saw him every single day and he had everything he wanted or needed. Quite obviously it was disregarded. When he was declared incompentant who was assigned to him for his HCPOA? There has to have been someone assigned at that time. Go to the court house and obtain that information as well.