He wants to move on (but not to a care home!) and has packed up his belongs, but he has dementia and doesn't understand what is going on any more. After 3 years of progressive care-giving, my husband and I are beyond ready to have our home and our lives back. Any suggestions how to ease the transition?
We don't have 'wait lists' for care homes in British Columbia, Canada any more. Of course we would prefer to relocate my FIL to a nice private room in a nice facility not too far from where we live. But the reality is that there are extremely few private pay rooms for dementia patients, and those that do exist are prohibitively expensive for most of us (Cdn $6,500 + per month). There are quite a few private pay Assisted Living facilities in the area but they won't take my FIL because of the dementia. So we are having to rely on our socialized medical system to find a space for him in a publically subsidized care home. That will cost him 80% of his taxable income, about $3,000/mo probably in a shared room with 2 or 3 other men. We will take any suitable (i.e. secure) space within a 100 mile radius of our home. (We live in a small town so we have NO facilities here.) We were told that flexibility regarding location would shorten the wait to 1 - 3 months, depending on how many care home residents die (to free up spaces) in the meantime. Here is part of the problem: families get fed up with waiting OR the patient ends up with a medical emergency which puts them in hospital. Hospital beds are more costly for the government than care home spaces, so the hospital patients get placement priority over other people waiting to get into a care home. In fact 75% of placements in our area are from hospital beds. Several people, both within the medical system and outside of it, have recommended we just take my FIL to the hospital and tell them we can't handle him at home any more, and leave him there. But that approach is just wrong on so many levels that we haven't been able to bring ourselves to do it. On the advice of someone who works in a large care home, recommending that we be the squeaky wheel, we are now following up with the case worker weekly. But I worry that might be the opposite of helpful. We are so frustrated with our broken medical system, but think we are doing all we responsibly can.
So my questions is/was, if/when he eventually gets a space (!!!) have you any recommendations how to ease the transition to wherever he'll be?
Are you able to take some of his furniture or are these homes ready with a bed, dresser, closet, etc? Take Dad's bedspread if it isn't too big. And try to bring as much as you can of things that Dad likes. My Dad loved his books, he had 200 of them, so there was space for his bookcases and all his books, that made him happy.