I can only speak for myself but I missed far less work time when my children were small than I do now caring for an elderly parent... I have to laugh when managers still get concerned if a prospective employee has small children. I want to yell " who cares about that??? how old are their parents & how is their health???" I'm still 10 years from retirement so thats not an option. I have 3 weeks vacation & 5 sick days. I did use 11 vacation days personally this year but the remainder of my "paid time off" has been used on my 87 year old mother's doctor's appts; hospital stays etc. There are services that can drive her to/from but she needs someone with her who can go in to the exam room with her to take notes, ask questions etc. as she doesn't remember what the dr says . She actually had 7 different drs appts in the past 2 months! . My brother & I try and split them but she's not comfortable w/ him in the room if she has to undress or lower her gown etc. plus he has the same issues missing work as I do. I really hope someone starts to raise this issue on a national level as I know I can't be alone. Wondering what others thoughts on this are...
And your right about the 1 pm appointment. The wait at my mom's doctors office is usually always an hour minimum in the waiting room and then a 1/2 hour in the exam room!!! Can you call the office and make the appt's? That's what I do now and I work it around my schedule and then just tell Mom when we will be going.
I have home monitoring which means that we have 2 cameras installed in the living room and bedroom and I can see my parents on livestream on my Blackberry anywhere. I also have emergency lineline installed in case they fall. All my salary is spent on accommodation, groceries and hydro. I pray that God will be merciful and provide for me as I'm an only child with no spouse or children - or that He kills me after my parents are gone.
I, too, if I had to do it all over again, I would have looked for a corporate position decades ago.
My parents primary doctor wanted to see them every 3 months.... after doing that for the past 6 years and taking all that time off I finally decided to postpone their appointments and drag it out for a few more months.... nothing terrible happened by doing that.... in fact, nothing happened at all accept for my parents grumbling about not going to the doctor :P
Now I am now dragging out the time with other appointments for my parents. Maybe now I CAN finally make appointments for myself !!
In the meantime, I bank my vacation time, and use probably 98% of it on mother-related stuff.
I am keeping track of all the hours. My employer is sympathetic having lived thru it.
As far as other people suggestions or hints that this is a need for govt to pay family members to do the care.....oh that is a BIG can of worms. Administration of that would cost astronomical. I hope my taxes do not go to pay my neneighbor to be caregiver. That is job best left to AL and NH. People should skip the big screen TV, fancy cars, vacations other than camping, and save for retirement including cares in AL or NH. There are still good LTC policies around, and newer hybrid life insurance or annuities which can be designed to cover expenses at home, AL or NH. It is every person's individual choice to avail themselves of these options, to take care of themselves.
Thank goodness in my area, there are a lot of retirement villages, independent facilities, assistant living facilities and nursing homes. It's the mid-size metro areas that are behind the curve with less choices. I would hate to be in my 80's and find I need to be on a waiting list with 50 people ahead of me wanting to move into a facility.
As an aside on this, last night 9/16 on Charlie Rose, Senator Kirsten Gillibrand was on. One of the things she said was staggering…that when she went on the armed services committee when in Congress there were actually several women. That for the first time there was a group of women. That the men on the committee were all about how many tanks would be placed on the field; how many tons of armament would be delivered. Very focused on on hard costs of buildings and equipment. The women were asking what were the #'s on social services costs - how many PTSD cases, suicides, field hospital units & staffing, deployment costs to their families. That often this data & social costs was not being collected. But with more women in office and being put on the armed forces / defense hearing that has changed somewhat. Still horrendous problems (especially the suicide rate) but more focus & funding for social costs.
In a way, this is similar to how the US approaches dealing with aging. The focus is about building & staffing NH & AL. The $ is made in having elders in facilities not in living with family. Medicaid is designed to pay for NH first & foremost. Not for paying family caregivers or for family to be able to hire caregivers. My mom's cost between Medicaid NH r&b & Medicare hospice is about 14K mo. $ 168,000.00 a year. And mom's medical demands are pretty minimal as she has no chronic diseases like diabetes or cancer. She is just very elderly with a terminal disease (in her case probably Lewy Body Dementia) and totally bedfast due to hip shatter. She is now going into her 15th month on hospice. Probably has spent more on health costs this last year than total for her entire prior 90+ lifetime. I shudder to think of what the costs are going to be when the oncoming tsumani of baby boomers start hitting needing the NH's and will qualify for Medicaid. There just has got to be a better way which means a sea change in what aging is to be in the US.
When it came to caring for my parents, I used my vacation days and sick days, and days without pay. Eventually headquarters decided since other employees were doing my work while I was out, my position was no longer needed :(
Now I am with a company that is way more understanding.
Some jobs are more flexible than others as are some high earning careers.
The truth is no employer - small or large corporation- will sacrifice their long term productivity to enable someone to have a second job, and caregiving is a demanding job.
I encourage caregivers to remain in the workforce, but I guess it is similiar to the decision to raise children or return to work. If you are going to make the nearly the same as you are going to pay, you may lean towards doing it yourself for the personal satisfaction. I do not know many DRmoms who decided to raise children instead of having a practice....they did both.