Organising the right care assistance can be challenging at the best of times, but it is even more tricky during public holiday periods such as Easter.
At DR Care Solutions, our systems and processes enable us to find solutions in the most urgent of circumstances. Here’s a case study from 2021 demonstrating our agility and commitment to finding the right care, at the right time, and in the right place.
An executive at a management consulting company urgently needed support. It was close to a week before Easter 2021 and her father, the primary carer of her mother, had just been hospitalised after a sudden stroke and extremely high blood pressure.
The hospital was going to discharge him when we were called in. The executive and her sister were very concerned that their father would end up having another stroke or worse due to the enormous stress he was under caring for his wife with complex health issues. We were called on to find a solution.
DR Care Solutions took the steps of:
Speaking with the hospital staff and advising them of their duty of care not to discharge the patient until in-home care was in place.
Promptly undertaking a full care needs assessment with the mother and the father in the hospital. A double Life Plan™ was prepared outlining their wants and wishes. It established that the couple were ready to move into a residential aged care facility and would accept in-home care until they found the residence of their choice.
Issuing the double Life Plan™ to several quality in-home care providers on the DR Care Solutions Care Provider Network. Easter was days away and lockdown restrictions were increasing. One of the providers on our network advised they had the perfect in-home carers for this couple.
Introducing the selected care provider to the clients and receiving their acceptance of the choice. On acceptance, the father was discharged from hospital and returned home with in-home care and support in place. He was able to spend Easter with his wife and family with the support of quality carers who, in addition to providing personal care were also wonderful home makers. The carers undertook the domestic duties that the father had been struggling to keep up with while caring for his wife.
Using our bespoke software on residential aged care facilities across Australia, we produced a comparative platform report to identify facilities located close to both daughters. We were able to locate a facility with two rooms side by side and near to both daughters. The bonus was that the rooms had balconies with fresh air coming in. The daughters cried when we advised them of what we had been able to achieve in such a short amount of time.
The couple relocated the week after Easter, two weeks after the father’s hospital discharge.
Now in residential care, their health has improved and stress levels have reduced dramatically. Both having good cognition, they reflected that they were not coping at home and now enjoy being ‘cared for’ with meals prepared for them and their cleaning done. They also enjoy joining the social activities just down the corridor.
They spend time together but also have their own rooms to have their own space.
We also introduced an aged care accredited financial adviser to help the couple work on a strategy to help them to pay for their residential care, without recourse to their daughters.
If you’re experiencing difficulties in accessing services due to public holidays, reach out to Danielle Robertson at DR Care Solutions for an initial discussion on how to set up the right care, support and assistance for yourself or a loved one at the right time and in the right place.