My sister refuses to communicate with me but we need to find a place for Dad. What can I do?
My sister and brother-in-law, who is an attorney, secured DPOA from my father, who has Alzheimers. This happened in February and I just found out about it this month. I requested that they provide a copy of this document to myself and my two other sisters. They refused to provide it to any of us. I visited my dad in May (he lives alone, my sister provides care to him but she is one and one-half hours away). He is well physically but his short-term memory is terrible! Systems that have worked ok for the last two years are now failing. (meds, heating meals, etc) He told me he wanted me to help him to find a place to move but my sister refuses to communicate with me. I am in the medical field and she is clueless as to what an appropriate facility would be for dad. I live 2000 miles away. What can I do??
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If you are concerned that your father's living arrangements leave him at risk of harm, you could always contact his local APS, I suppose. Or, if you're entitled to some professional courtesy, what about his doctor?
If your father has been diagnosed as having AD, if it's been staged and if your sister knew, she should have told her attorney husband that before he even considered a DPOA.
His actions might be grounds for filing a complaint with the ethics or grievance committee of the state bar association of the state in which he's licensed to practice.
That action most likely would inflame family relations, though, so consider it carefully, or perhaps just keep it in the back of your mind if you need a club against the BIL. You'd really have to be able to prove that your father wasn't mentally capable of executing the DPOA in February.
Notwithstanding, I agree that a new DPOA would be desirable, but if there's a diagnosis of AZ, and depending on the staging, that may be problematic.
Determine from his doctor what the stage is and if your father is still mentally capable of making important legal decisions. If you have a local attorney you want to use, explain the situation to him up front, and follow to the letter the guidelines for declration of incompetency so that if you father can still execute a new DPOA, there is no question of mental capacity.
If you want this new DPOA to be valid, address and resolve these issues so that there's no claim of undue influence, etc.
You might want to change your profile to clarify that issue.
Do you want to be his POA? Do you have medical POA for Dad? Or does Sis have that, too?
It seems like the main issue is whether it continues to be safe for Dad to live alone, and the selection of an appropriate place for him to live. Is that correct?
Why is Sis refusing to communicate with you, do you know? Is this a long-standing pattern? Ideally the two of you would discuss options, decide whether it would be good to find a facility near you or near her, discuss what he can afford, etc., and then together meet with him to discuss the options. But it doesn't sound like this situation is ideal.
Can we hear some more about the lack of communication from your Sis?
What we've also found is that people are a bit tender in this circumstance and attitude and tone are really important. Perhaps your sister perceives that you are finding her care lacking and want to move Dad across country near you. That may not be the case, but everyone gets a bit hypersensitive in this phase of life.
So essentially your DPOA sister chucked her toys out of the pram once you requested formal information? Don't get me wrong, it was a perfectly reasonable request, but the formality, being formal, hints at 'checking.' 'Supervision.' I'm not sure how to describe it, but it's a sort of feeling that one is being second-guessed that, taken the wrong way, really grates.
It *shouldn't* grate. Ideally, you and your sisters ought to have been included as people who should be informed when the DPOA comes into force, and there would be nothing wrong with your having sight of the deed - what's the problem? But these things do rankle. Your sister is probably being as huffy about your view of the legal bits as you, quite understandably, feel about her view of the health care bits.
Does she take phone calls, respond to emails, that kind of thing? Could you write to her at your father's address?
The thing is, to do anything you do need to have some kind of two-way contact with her. Setting aside the DPOA issues, you all as a family would ideally be discussing options for your father's care. I'm sure you're right to suspect that she feels that your input to date "hasn't been enough" - which must surely be the silliest reason for rejecting increased input! but, mea culpa, the temptation is always there - but all you can do is keep plugging away in the hope of getting a good, workable plan together. Drop the DPOA subject and see if you can get at least a grunted acknowledgement from her that there does *need* to be a plan?