Hug me please!

As many of you know, my father is ill and in the Palliative Care unit at North Shore Hospital (hospice). It seems as if the administrators of that unit feel that my father is not a candidate for palliative care and want to place him, yet again, in the nursing home which is housed in the same building but has no tie or is not a part of NSH. The nursing home is indeed an excellent one but there is one problem. While my father has great insurance to cover the cost of nursing care, it is not quite enough to cover the 24/hr private duty nurses who have been helping him while he was in palliative care and other units of the hospital for the past 8 months. When he had private duty nursing, AARP covered 80% of it and it was very do-able for us as a family unit to pay for.

Dad is immobile and has developed bed sores which could not be avoided. He is also in and out of consciousness and lucidity. He is currently on a special bed which has heat, air and water that circulates to make him more comfortable so his sores do not get worse and thus infected which would eventually kill him. This be does not exist in the nursing unit. They simply cannot get it for him. It isnt as simple as moving it with him. SO the family decided that instead of 24 hour nurses that we cannot afford, that we will hire a nurses aid for ONE shift so my father can be tended to more frequently at least for SOME of the day. Nurses aides are less expensive.

OK so here we are trying to figure out which shift to place these aides. My sisters feel as if the aides should be there from 8 am to 8 pm so they can be there to assist the nurses in turning him to alleviate the pressure on his sores with more frequency. During this time, my mom is there for about 3-4 hours. I see no reason to pay an aide while my mom is sitting there. I also would much rather see an aide there overnight because in the event that Dad passes in the night because he couldnt be suctioned through his trach tube, that he would not be alone or frightened. I dont know how my brother feels yet.

When dad was in 'hospital' and not nursing units, I could sleep at night knowing he was not alone. Now when they move him, I fear he could choke and be scared. It is bad enough that he is so ill but to think he may die alone breaks my heart. I am very scared for him