I live in CA, my mom lives in Greensboro, NC. She has OCPD and interstitial lung disease. Also very frail and weak from a lifetime of eating disorders. She's in bad shape and spends 99% of her time in bed. She thinks/hopes she'll be gone soon but the drs say even people in her condition can last for years. She's miserable and it's tearing me/us up.
My brother lives near her and thank god is doing Everything. He's there everyday taking care of everything but he has a job, a family, etc, and is spread too thin and losing his mind over this. It's unsustainable.
Moving her out and into an assisted-living type place won't work. Ideally, we find an older female caregiver who could live there in the spare bedroom (for free) and we pay her an annual salary to be there 24/7 to help her as needed, which mostly will be helping her in to and out of the bathroom, getting her food, making sure she gets her medicines, etc, but mostly it will be sitting around doing nothing except giving her peace of mind that someone is there when stuff happens or she needs something.
Obviously this is not inexpensive but when we look at what the insurance might pay per day and factor everything in, we feel like it comes out about the same as the idea mentioned above.
I'm looking for ideas about how to find such a person, and if anyone knows of a specific person, all the better.
As for ideas where you can find someones to look after you mom, maybe you could call up those schools that train CNAs. Perhaps, those nursing assistant students may be interested.
Now, for the job, you need to specify the EXACT working hours and duties. It is not reasonable to expect someone to live, work and be on call 24/7 for your mother. No one can and should work 24 hours a day. Is it an 8 or 12 hour shift 5 or 7 days a week? After that the person should be able to go and do what they want. That means you will need 2 to 3 people to watch her around the clock.
You said mostly the person just sits around and does nothing. Well, security guards mostly just sit around or stand around and do nothing, but they still need to get paid. The person you hire could be working somewhere else making money instead of sitting around watching a sleeping old lady.
As for living rent-free, that comes with the job. The sitters HAVE TO be there in order to do their job. Most people don't have to pay rent for their desk and office while working their jobs. Same with the sitters.
One last thing, everyone needs a life outside of work. You want one person to be house-bound 24/7 with a sick person 365 days a year, would you take that job? Would anyone?
GD :)
Also get an elder law attorney to assist with setting this up legally. And another compliment to you, you are correct this is too much for your brother with all of his other responsibilities.
GD :)
GD :)
Bless you all, and I hope your individual situations work out!
From my brother and me (and our mom) - Happy Holidays and New Year!
GD :)
Whoever you hire and allow to live there will have certain tenant rights. I don't know what those are for NC. There were instances where the hired help didn't work out but wouldn't move out either after getting fired. Then they had to be evicted which involved hiring an attorney and paying a lot of legal fees.