My mother will need hospice care. My siblings & I live out of state. I’m currently working with my own health related issues. My sibling is retired.
How would hospice work in this case? I explained to my sibling that hospice does not provide 24/7 care or does it?
If your mom is living by herself in her home and realistically cannot live alone….. that it’s obvious that her there on her own solo is a health and safety issue….. what will happen is the hospice provider will do an assessment on her ADL and medication management capabilities. And also her ability to deal with an emergency. If she’s found lacking, then hospice will do a consult with them and their family to either get adult caregiver(s) in the home most or all non-hospice staff time or do a referral to facility. The agencies have to be fairly strict on this as Medicare (who pays for hospice as a Part A benefit) has lots of safety evaluation requirements that all hospice has to meet.
As others have said, if family are all out of town, it may be best that mom moves into a facility and has hospice coming into the facility 2-3 times a week.
If a patient is at home hospice will have a nurse to come out once a week to start to check vitals and such and will be there around 30 minutes. Aides will come about twice a week to bathe the patient, and your loved one will have access to the hospice chaplain, social worker and volunteers, but 99% of the patients care will still fall on family members or hired help.
Of course they do supply any and all needed equipment, supplies and medications which are covered 100% under your mothers Medicare.
But since you are all out of town your best bet now is to get your mother placed in the appropriate facility where she'll be looked after and cared for 24/7, and where you can still have hospice come to the facility to keep extra sets of eyes on her.
I wish you well in getting your mother placed soon so she can die in peace.
Best of luck.