Cautionary tale for those volunteer caregivers who are not also the POA.

My SIL is the POA and MPOA for my husband's mother. She's blase about her mom's medical issues and ignores my input. She makes almost no effort to help her with simple things like a knee brace, better shoes, topical pain cream, etc. It's very annoying since I have to be the one getting her this stuff and she's not even my mom. My husband will not allow her to live with us and I agree, so it's not terribly burdensome. Just bizarre.

I’m now at the end of my tether. I have given up on my siblings, especially my sister. She has proved to both my husband and me that she is a narcissistic greedy parasite. After yet another argument about putting Dad into care, she ripped shreds off me; telling me that she would take much better care of him than I do; that he lives in “ Alcatraz” in our home, which is absolutely insulting to my husband and me. We have had him in our home for a little over two years. but he’s not able to do much anyway. He won’t join senior groups in the church or community, he just wants to read and sleep. He’s 87.
Yes, it’s not easy, yes. we’d like our life back. But my sister has done absolutely nothing except make me feel like s**t ever since we took him in. If she did have him at her home, which she doesn’t really want to do anyway, she refuses to drive him to church, or anywhere else.
She’s a jealous nasty cow. According to her “I live off my husband and my father” this is absolute garbage!! She has a mortgage and we don’t.
My father helps us with grocery shopping only and he’s happy to help. My husband pays the bills. We share expenses. I pay for things when I can now I don’t have a job. I have applied for aged care cleaning and laundry jobs in this last week as I have many years experience in this type of work. She works twice a week, her husband is a defence attorney, they have just come back from a glorious vacation which he would have paid for, and she says these things to me. All because I wanted to put our father into care. Having a holiday anywhere is a distant memory for me and my hubby. I feel
like I’m an only child and the only thing I have in common with her is that we share the same father. Pretty harsh isn’t it? I’d be quite happy if I never had to see her again.

I was lucky, I was the oldest, a girl and lived in the same town as my parents. So it was logical that I would get POA and be Executor. I would never had cared for Mom if someone else had her POAs. Help, yes, but not have the full responsibility.

Alva Deer. You hit the nail right on the head. I feel like a nobody. I’m my father’s carer but not his POA. I’m just there to do all the crappy stuff like doctors appointments, etc etc while my siblings do bugger all. Except ring up when it suits them with patronizing criticism. This is from my sister who has never done anything to help
unless there is something in it for her benefit.

You are absolutely right in a worst cast screnario. I would caution all would be caregivers to be certain of this, and of any contract for financial remuneration. One just CANNOT, without grave harm, blindly walk in expecting things to go well. You message is well taken, well meant, and I hope of value to all caregivers.

I was mom's caregiver; I was also her POA. It never came to pass that I had to use it, fortunately, since her health issues were strictly physical and she remained mentally fit until she passed away; she was also relatively reasonable about what sort of care she needed and did try her best to be as cooperative a patient as her condition allowed. In that respect, I am much more fortunate that many, many people who post here.

But I agree with you, Mysteryshopper. There is no way I would ever, ever take on voluntary caregiving without not only being named POA, but also having access to that person's money. I would absolutely not take care of someone if I had to constantly being begging for the person needing care's money for their needs. I would have no problems keeping meticulous records of the expenditures, but no way would I be willing to deal with family members who were only concerned with keeping their inheritance "intact" to the detriment of the person needing care.

So very true. Caregivers need to understand this going in, but also those of us who will need caregivers should understand it. Too many people sign a POA without clear ideas. A man I knew insisted his favorite dimwit daughter who had little life experience be his POA. His wife objected because she was already his caregiver and didn’t want to have to ask dimwit for money to take care of him. Dimwit was only interested in preserving her inheritance. Wife had enough and divorced him for that and other reasons. I’m sure there are lots of stories like this!

Do you think that maybe as "primary" caregiver you allowed a delay in some decision making that should have been done sooner?
If the POA had been obligated to find a paid caregiver through an agency someone from an agency would have informed their supervisor that the decline had reached a point where a higher level of care would be needed in order to keep LO safe?
Or would the decision have been made to place LO in skilled care that suited the level of care needed.
Or would you, or could you have said at some point...this is getting to be more than I can safely do we either need another caregiver or we need to find a different way to care for LO.
You can't look back and say what if because you do not know what the course of events would have been.