Home Health Care Issues

[Beatrice83]

Home healthcare givers vs family member issues.

I use to work a home healthcare giver to someone who was disabled. I have since quit do to this major issue. However, I would like to know what my rights as a state caregiver is in this type of situation.

Situation: The consumer I cared for was a disabled person who was there own court appointed guardian. Who lived at home with other family members. The issue staff (not just me) had was family members trying to "boss" workers around and making there job harder if not almost impossible. Can a family member tell staff how to do there job, what they should be doing, and try to force staff to "REPORT" to said family member when the person you are caring for is there own court appointed legal guardian?

I was told that if the person you are caring for is there own legal guardian you have to do what the person you are caring for wants to do. As long as it follows state/federal/hipaa/ and osha regulations. Since the family members are NOT legal guardian of said consumer if caregivers were to divulge anything/information to the family members or do what the family members wanted over what the consumer wanted. Wouldn't that be in violation of multiple regulations/illegal?.

Example. Say consumer told staff member something that they did not want the staff to tell a family member. If staff were to tell said family member what consumer didn't want them to say that would be a breach of patient confidentiality...is that correct?

What can caregivers do when this situation occurs, besides reporting things to state appointed agency you work for? Because it really puts the caregiver in a compromised situation to the point where they cannot do there job, and its interfering with the needs of person there supposed to be caring for.

Any thoughts on this?

[anitalaff, BSN, RN]

I work in home care and this issue arises from time to time. I don't have enough information to sound off much on your situation, but two alarm bells are going off here. Number one, your managers were not supporting you enough and you all needed to make a plan to put family in their place (so to speak). Client safety and care comes first. Yes, we cater to specific situations in home care, but interfering with proper care is never OK.

Number two, if your client had agreed to allow family members to know details of his/her care, then all is well. If so, this should have been included in the chart upon admission. They can withdraw or change this agreement at any time, but they need to keep HCPs in the loop.

So much of providing great homecare is having great support in the office. I'm sorry you had to quit over this.