It has come to pass that I don't have the energy to tell you everything that has happened since the last post. Suffice to say that I am single handedly to blame for frustrating the efforts to keep the nursing home open, according to the poisonous little toad D.O.N. All I wanted was to put Mum's name down on the ACAS list and with the placement officer so that when the time came I was ready to move her to a nursing home where she could have Doc Marvin. I wasn't moving her the next day, that rumour went round like wildfire and then we have the lickspittle carers (not the good ones) telling Mum what a terrible place I was taking her to. As though I wasn't acting under instructions from the old bag that I had to make sure she could have Doc Marvin. As of this morning she's been told she can end up in a tent in Shitter's Ditch and I won't be visiting. I think it might have been the stress that caused me to black out down the back steps, coming too, to find myself hanging on the branches of the apple tree. Funny feeling watching the sky turn purple then disappear into black but self preservation must have made me go for the tree instead of falling on my face. After the last week, I'm calling that good luck.
This is me at the moment. Volcanic rage encased in glass, hopefully for all concerned, not to be broken. I've seen a lot of paperweights but never with a volcano inside.
More good news. I have a new desktop which is so much more powerful than the dear old 2005 unit I'm using now. Does anybody know a 10 year old kid who will set it up for me? First take all images off the old one and go through emails and save all passwords. It comes with IE 8.1 version. Anybody know if this is okay? And I don't think that using the back up from 2005 will be enough for 2014. Instead of working with 1G of RAM, I'll have 4 and 1 Terrabyte of HDD, haven't a clue what that means. I like a desktop because if the flat screen monitor goes, I can get a new one and I have two keyboards which I change around to help the arthritis, seems to work. I may need a new mouse considering the beating this one has had lately. Nothing like smashing a mouse up and down to make a page load faster. And where I have it all set up I can cloud watch or moon watch through the window. When I shut down, I walk away and with a laptop I don't think I could do that. I'll be right as soon as I open the box, haven't had time to even read the instructions or look at the nice black shineyness of it.
And the Queen of Fonts will reign again, I can put them all back. I've been working with 10 only, very frustrating.
I didn't think I could hate any politician as much as John Winston Howard but consider him as a pink marshmallow compared to the mouldy vicious lot that holds power now. $800,000 for a bomb proof car? Why bother, Abbott's mouth is so big any one with good aim could chuck a bomb straight down his gullet. As for Hockey, I hope his gastric band corrodes and he explodes and does an "Aunt Marge", disappearing over the horizon never to be seen again.
This government has taken the subsidy from pensioners in nursing homes and forced all homes to require a bond. This bond can be anything from $300,000 to $400,00 and then residents have to find the daily cost of care. If you're a large company running a large nursing home then you get more money from the government and this is forcing small places to close. This is what is happening to my mother's nursing home.
The Kingston Council owns the land and the building. The Comm. of Management owns the bed licences. The Council has given us enough funds to the end of October and it won't matter how many petitions we collect or public anger raises a voice, we're more or less stuffed. Suddenly talk of helping us look for suitable places and offers of assistance in moving has gone quiet. According to Doc Marvin, who has experience, they will already have a plan to shove the oldies into anywhere they can get them. The idea is that then the partners or relatives can try to get them into a home near where they used to be, as long as they are out of Mentone after October.
I am 'persona non grata' because I was asked after the meeting what I thought by the cheery Com of Man. lady who is all gung ho and we won't go. I told her all it was were weasel words, meaning nothing and the Home was doomed. Funnily enough she looked right through me when we met the next day.
Oh woe is me, did I hit the nail on the head? The residents who came to the Home from the 1st of July have had to pay a bond but we were never informed of this. High level care homes never had bonds. After 5 years my mother doesn't have a lot of money left, plenty if this place stayed open but not enough to front up a bond if she goes to another place. And why should we after paying over nearly 280,000 dollars less pension for the last five years. I was too tired to do all the sums properly like add up the pension and take that off the Home accounts and then add up the clothes, books, dvds and such.
Fortunately with sister being in the geriatric health system we have a head start on placements and should know how we stand next week. By the way, there will be no meeting next week at the Home.
We'll leave mum where she is for the moment, just in case miracles happen. All the residents are very upset even the dementia ones, they can sense things are not right. Sister says the odds of 50% being alive 2 months after they're moved is about right. It has come to this, old people in need are big business but old pensioners are also the new bludgers according to our great leader.
Now I have to go and phone the BOH and tee him up to remove the huge bird bath we bought for mum so she could watch the birds from her bed. That's ours and we're moving it now.
