Please bear with me, as I can come back later as I am able to explain.
APS was contacted but not by me or my sister. The results were disastrous and we were banned by the family for trying to help. After several months, he now has home delivered meals initiated by my sister months prior. The family were in denial that he could not at times prepare his own meals. He has been moved to his other step-son's home, in a cleaner environment, but alone for 10-12 hrs.
Keeping an eye on his situation:
1) Why can't he have new glasses if he has $5,000/month income?
2) Why can't he have his brace he needs to walk with post-polio syndrome?
3) How can his very ill wife take his income to support her and her 50 y.o. son in the home that he was taken from, and deny him care?
4) How can these 5 people decide to move him away again, always under their control, against his will?
5) He says he has Ca of the lung, and could not even get care in a facility because his wife needs his money for her care.
6) "They" say: "Oh, there is money, in a trust". They appear more interested in protecting their trust money than caring for either my uncle, or his wife, who remains in their home of the last 20+ years after moving in her son.
7) There is more, but I am powerless. It doesn't look good for them when his stepson (his wife's other son) says "Oh, I have his eye Rx in my pocket now". Uncle still doesn't have his glasses, and I believe, since he has 6 months to live, his wife will not allow the glasses.
I have watched real abuse go on since November, and did not report .
Can he have glasses, his brace? Caregivers come in?
1) Should hospice come in?
2) It appears he has no more rights, even to choose his own residence.
3) It was reported by his wife that there was a time he gave up about two years ago and refused to eat.
Since this has all been too much family dysfunction for me (toxic); and I cannot sleep or get this out of my mind and heart, that prior to these past 4-6 months I was an occasional visitor to their home.....
I advised my uncle to call APS himself first.
Could you compile a list of questions you would ask if you were Queen Social Worker, and take it to the police, and just get their advice? Things like:
Is he or is he not attending medical appointments relevant to his cancer?
What palliative care is he receiving, and by whom is it being delivered?
What one person is taking responsibility for his ADL/everyday welfare?
What one person is taking responsibility for his finances, and where are these being accounted for?
Unless these questions can be answered satisfactorily, I don't see how the safeguarding authorities can just walk away from it. But I realise that you can hardly contact APS yourself. It's a bummer.
Who did your sister arrange the meals-on-wheels through? What about the agency whose nurse was dismissed? There must be a lot of people thinking questions but not asking them.
It *could* be that a very difficult situation is being handled, but messily. But that's not good enough just to turn a blind eye to. Of course you're right to speak up!
Uncle has stated, going unwillingly to his stepson's home in January, it is not ideal, but his wife was supposed to live there too. She is not coming. If she knew that, he could have stayed in their home, brought in caregivers, instead of her bully son who verbally abused my uncle (and other things observed by me and a visiting nurse), they fired her and told me he did not need food prepared.
Only the stepson living off his Mom is a bully. Not feeding her as she goes to the hospital the next day, blaming my uncle for not changing her diaper, when her son is supposed to be the caregiver and was not even home that night.
That is a whole another story, my uncle was removed from slovenly conditions by the other stepson who loves him. omg, this is hard, very personal. Was it okay to try and expose the truth? Is this okay? I am sure it is not okay with them. I saw this stepson swipe an 18 y.o. cat off the counter and a week later complain on facebook he has to get money to have the cat put down-will ask his mother in the hospital.....That is in the past.
No one will admit to his diagnosis, it was stated, then retracted, not acknowleged. Then, it's "I don't know". Of course it is that they "don't know", because he could not be competently signing his pension check over to his wife, they -all five of them under control of the very ill wife-if he was incompetent. He has not been declared incompetent, does not know if anyone has POA, his step-son said my uncle has control over his own money. Their motivation is to keep it the same, using his money, with family having full access to his income and bank accounts for their own use. Then, denying him care.
Except for being alone, lacking his glasses and a brace, his own daughter upsetting him, his family planning/forcing another move, he is in no immediate danger.
His stepson where he lives now said he is like a father to him, he loves him, he can live there forever. That may have changed, I don't know, will not ask for more lies. There are five, in total, moving him around against his will.
It appears, looking in from the outside, and from what I can determine is credible coming from an 86 y.o. with (dementia/alzheimers?), that there is elder financial abuse. He is also a fall risk.
My guess is that uncle's wife won't free up enough money for caregivers to come in to help my uncle to not be alone 10-12 hours.
His son and daughter plan to move him to son's home, farther away. Son's wife (they have a child) will caregive for free, putting a burden on her bad back.
What is your status with the family now, are you still persona non grata? If so, how are you getting news about his situation?
Does he have any children, or is it just his step family? And has he been a parent to those children, or is he merely their mother's spouse to them?
He has lost capacity and has said "Yes" under pressure, but he does not want to move again, further from his wife.
Through default, claiming ignorance, these five people have perpetrated a scam on this elderly man, who still loves his wife and wants to live near her.
When he is again sent away, too far to visit.....too far to help......against his will.......he is 86, in case any "family" are reading this and cannot see their own father in this scenario.
My sister and I may take this public to the media because the next step would be a public guardian, a big fight. There are other family but they too have been banned, and do not know the truth.
Should the family be contacted?