Mum has a rota of probably about 12 carers. Some she sees all the time, others maybe once a month.
She has taken a dislike to one carer, to the point Mum screams abuse at her the second she walks in the room. Mum is fine with all her other carers.
The agency know about this, it is upsetting for Mum (Vascular Dementia), me seeing Mum act this way and the carer. I’ve asked for the carer to be removed from the rota, but she still appears on the rota a couple of times a week.
Recently I’ve been told by other carers that this carer is agitating the situation, I was woken up the other day because Mum was refusing to get out of bed, I was surprised to find the disliked carer stood over Mum. Once I asked her to leave the room Mum was fine, the carer she was with told me later she went out of her way to be the carer to wake Mum up despite knowing what would happen.
As with all care agencies we have a “communication book” and everytime this carer visits she writes a lecture on how awful my Mum is…I’m scared the agency will withdraw care just because of one person who doesn’t know a thing about Dementia.
She is here at 3:30 and 7 tomorrow and I am dreading it. I’ve phoned the agency, but other than someone being on stand incase something bad happens they won’t do anything…
It isn’t acceptable. We had two occasions of my brother not liking carers. In the case of one of them, it transpired that she had been refused by several other clients. So maybe I was not loud enough in my complaints. The agency had said, ‘Everyone likes her’ - which was obviously not true, and in any case irrelevant. She was extremely lazy and my brother said she had kicked the cat - I couldn’t confirm that and the cat was stumm - but I think one reason they kept sending her was that we always had two carers so they persuaded themselves it was acceptable. Anyway, it’s totally unacceptable in your mother’s case.
Hi Sandra,
When S had care workers in the morning, I had to contact the agency as one worker had no autism knowledge at all and I ended up putting in a complaint about another as she was very unpunctual (she must have run errands between calls) and it was making me late for work. The agency took both off the rota.
If your Mum doesn’t like the care worker and she lacks the skills to work with your Mum, then you have every right to request she is removed from the rota.
The two visits went surprisingly well. When the carer walked into the room at tea time, Mum did her usual screaming of abuse, but then settled down and was calm for the rest of the call.
The bed time call was even better, no abuse from Mum at all and she even had a conversation with the Carer she normally hates.
Dementia is so weird, I talked to Mum before each call and told her she was upsetting me when she was rude. I have no idea if that’s why she was OK, but I’m just pleased to get through the two calls without incident…
Hi , I just done quick read of what your going through I’ve spoken too my husband who works for care company , sometimes a person doesn’t always click with a carer for no reason but if it happens regularly then maybe she or he may of handled your mum to roughly … You can demand for the carer not to attend your mum giving the reason why , either ring and speak to the line manager of the company I wouldn’t speak to the coordinator they never listen or putting in writing , the company won’t stop your mum’s care package , as there contracted , you can stop it and change care provider but they can’t do don’t worry , take care x