My mum has just moved into a care home. I think I need to have a proper chat with the home about this but I just wondered how other people manage… When my mum is getting low on toiletries she will ring me and tell me but because of her memory issues she sometimes forgets certain things. The staff haven’t rang me at all yet to say when she is running low.
What do other people do? Do I request the home ring me when they see she is low on bits?.. Do people try to buy in bulk for their loved ones so they know it will last a while?
She also smokes and I know this might sound really heartless but I’m 26 and I’ve cared for my mum for many years and moving her into a home was one of the hardest decisions I have ever had to make… But at the moment I am dropping cigarettes off every week as she smokes 10 a day… I can’t do this for the rest of mine and her life.
Hi Rachel
My lovely late husband was in a nursing home. Toiletries could be a problem. Other residents didn’t have any and I knew staff were using hubby’s. I didn’t mind a handful of shower gel but they never put it back! So, eventually I put his name and the date everything, a polite notice in his bathroom asking for toiletries not to be removed. I even hid some in his wardrobe! They got the message in the end when I questioned the amount used. I wasn’t bothered how much they used for him, but it was a pain providing for others. ( I’m not mean or unkind honestly!) I labeled everything.
I don’t know what you can do about her smokes am afraid. Buy in bulk and ask the staff to keep them in the office noting how many you have bought so know how long they will last? Another residents family member did this. It’s very hard, I understand. You have to be assertive I’m afraid. Broke my heart he had to be in a nursing home.
Rachel, who is funding mum’s care in the home?
Were you given an intrductory handbook when she moved in, stating how they charged for things, and how residents paid for things?
My mum was privately funded, the home had a no residents cash policy. Residents asked the home for papers, hairdressing etc. and at the end of the month, the resident or their rep (me, for mum) was given an itemised account.