Health and welfare lpa

Lawson58

Registered User
Aug 1, 2014
4,302
0
Victoria, Australia
We have both POAs for each other and have never been asked for either. I suppose as next of kin as yet it hasn't been required. My daughter though has had to use it for everything since her father has gone into care.

Once when our own GP was on leave, OH needed an urgent appointment for an episode of cellulitis. We saw a doctor I knew but he didn't. She sat him down and told him that she would ask him to tell her what the problem was and that she would then ask me for further details. Sensible lady!

We arrived at Emergency one night when OH had a transfusion grade nose bleed. Triage nurse took one look at him covered in blood and immediately passed the admission papers over to me to sign.

The clinic has a certified copy of my Advanced Care Directive but that's it. And come Christmas, we always take in loads of top quality chocolates for the wonderful reception staff. A little appreciation goes a long way.
 
Oct 19, 2019
2
0
Hi @witts1973 - like you, the solicitor advised us against taking out a health and welfare LPA, which I thought was very odd at the time.

I stuck with the decision for three years, but as the disease progressed, I decided that I'd rather have one in place, than not, even though doctors and consultants were talking with me quite freely about my husband's medical needs. We did this online.

As it was, my husband had a crisis in year four of his disease and ended up in a secure mental health unit for a couple of months. I produced the health and welfare LPA a few days into his stay there, when they were carrying out the DOLs process. Having said that, they had been keeping me fully informed of everything they were doing, even before I produced it, and I didn't get the feeling that anything would change even if I didn't have it in place. It just seemed to be a formality re the DOLs process.

A couple of years later there was another crisis, and through a very unique set of circumstances there were two occasions when I had to use my Health and Welfare LPA

One was when I personally gave my husband his prescribed medication after an emergency operation because there were two hospitals involved in his care and wires had got crossed to the point that my husband was going to be denied the medication he had specifically been provided with for when he came out of his operation.

The second time was on the same day. I used the LPA to discharge him from the A&E hospital (with no dementia trained nurses or 1:1 staff) back to a dementia specific ward at the hospital he had come from, where he had a team of doctors, nurses and carers ready and waiting for his return, with 1:1 support in place.

Had I not stepped in he would have been in real danger of injuring himself or others as he needed 1:1 support 24/7 due to confusion, mobility issues leading to falls - and aggression. They simply would not have coped.

Basically, you don't know you need these things until you need them - and our situation really was outside the norm.

Try not to worry unduly about something you cannot change now (assuming your mother no longer has capacity). I can honestly say that I would have been fine without a health and welfare LPA had it not been for those two quite unusual circumstances which came in the final months of my husband's 6 year illness.
 

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