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Sometimes bad behavior can start at the top and work down. Maybe there is another hospice in your area you could switch too. If not, then you really have to speak up. That's part of being an advocate for your mom and you may need help in the future so set the standard.
You are a wonderful daughter. Sending you love and hugs, Cattails
Also, I would hate to have them later say you can't get assistance since you turned it down. They can be funny like that. I would call her back and say, I am sorry, this is the real reason I didn't want her here...... I just didn't want to be a trouble maker, but after reflecting, I realized I was wrong and needed to confront this issue.
I know the feeling of not wanting to report her but it has to be done as she will just do it in another home. Be very sweet but factual. Also state it appears that it is not a good fit. At last let them try to send out another aid because this is to help you!!!!
I would keep cleaning my mom as you said when you wake up but mom still needs a good overall bathing. Please let someone help you with this.
If an ombudsman is able to help you they will investigate anonymously. I suspect the governing party for hospice would do the same. Let them try a 2nd aid or move on to a different hospice organization.
Please let us know the outcome. Thinking of you
This may not be the profession for them, and you should not cut yourself off from getting good help if available. Just let the head nurse know, and that you would like to try a few aids to find a good fit for you and your Mom.
For sure keep up the good work getting Mom cleaned up in the AM. Many Elders get UTIs, etc., from being left in soiled conditions - and these can and should be prevented. Good on you!! Keep us posted!
Absolutely, gently explain to the aid's supervisor about the situation, and how you feel about this person being in your home.
Your feelings about how helpers behave while in your home, are important!
By reporting the aid's behaviors, you might prevent that kind of neglect or other problems [including possible abuse] in that aid's work for other patients.
It is worth questioning why the supervisor failed to ask about the possibility of problems. That is part of a supervisor's job, to ascertain what is causing a family to request a helper not return. While a worker might be desperate for a job, there is no good reason to keep them working in a niche they do not fit in, or, prevent them getting proper training
There might also be health reasons the aid was not doing the proper job: Perhaps the aid has health issues that make doing the tasks difficult or painful, and the aid might need a different job assignment [we had a couple aids in that category--who gamely came here to help our elder, but was clearly in pain herself].
That said, I have learned over time, that too often, those desperate for work of any kind, can resort to becoming home health aids.
The training does not always get done well, sometimes not enough training,
or, the student fails to understand some things fully, and gets passed off to the work force because agencies need workers---kinda like students in school getting passed to the next grade, because the system does not want to hold them back for any reason---they need the student space, or, they need the person to be part of the workforce sooner than later.
IF few people give feedback that there are problems needing corrected, the system will not respond to fix things; it causes the entire system[s] to degrade over time, until more wake up and realize things are pretty poor, need fixed, and wonder how things spiraled down so badly.
Kinda like a number of other systems we live with these days...
Good Luck, Cattails
Good luck to you. Remember that your mom and you come first. Don't put up with crap and don't protect the caregivers, they can fend for themselves. If they get canned, chances are you're not the only one complaining anyway.
Workers who do it, often cannot qualify to do other work.
There is high turnover of workers at agencies, related to the agencies doing a number of things that make working for the agency a problem:
---assigning workers to environments they specifically asked to be avoided
[like, a non-smoker worker gets assigned to a smoker's house];
---assigning workers back-to-back shifts or rotating shifts or too many hours or coercing them to work beyond their physical limitations, etc.;
---contracts that benefit the agency, not the workers;
---poor training of workers;
---incomplete training of workers;
---Patients poorly assessed: UNder-assessed for level of care actually needed, causing workers to be assigned to clients needing more than they can do, or needing licensed nursing care;
---workers poorly assessed for their backgrounds, personalities, skills, health issues;
---agency gives assignments too far from worker's home;
etc.
So when one signs up to have home health care workers come to the house to care for their loved one, it's often a crap-shoot what kind of care one gets.
"Bonded" is supposed to mean that the agency will cover, or the bonding agent will cover, if the worker does something like theft or other.
IF the agency's brochure says they are "bonded" , then they legally have to be bonded.
IF something is removed from your house, and it was not supposed to be removed, the people who live there, or whoever is the POA for the person cared for, needs to file a police report for the missing items, and state in that report that they think the home-care worker removed it.
There may be other rules to follow, but those are basic. ,