What happens when a call is made to the abuse hotline?

Not sure about abuse, how about getting a different caregiver?

I am a Ombudsman in California, and you especially as a family member have the right to report this.

This is elder abuse and or endangerment if she does not get this surgery.

Contact the Adult Protective Services in the Florida city your family member lives in and tell them you wish to make a report of neglect. You may also want to remind the care giver she is a mandated reporter as a care giver and can have serious consequences by not following the law.

Good luck Ombie Linda

I recently called Adult Protective Services in California. I was concerned because my mom (I live with her) was not eating and I was concerned and also did not want to be accused of abuse. I had tried what I could without success. They were extremely helpful! They gave me great advice and some referrals. I followed their advice and now my mom is still not eating much but she is eating a lot more than she was. They were also very reassuring. I highly recommend you call them for advice. Even if they can't help much you will feel better for the call, I did.

DebFet - you have not given very much information here, do you have any legal authority over your grandmother? You mention the need for surgery, but not any dementia, so is she competent enough to make her own decisions? Do you have the health POA, is there a financial POA? Is there a trust, are you the trustee? Does grandma have a conservator, are you it? These are important questions. More
information is needed before your question can be fully addressed.

It is very difficult to handle things from such a distance. Are there are other relatives or friends in Florida who can help check in on grandma? Who is the caregiver that is too busy?

You ask about an abuse hotline. Most counties have some version of adult protective services or senior abuse social workers. It's difficult to tell exactly how each independent entity is going to function. Some in smaller communities jump right into it. In larger communities, I have seen foot dragging because there isn't enough staff. If you report the situation and yet you're not there and you're not in charge, you could start the wheels in motion where grandma could become a ward of the state and be assigned a public guardian in which case you have nothing to say about her care or treatment.

If you want to be involved in making decisions for your grandma, you probably need to get busy and take a trip down there to see for yourself what's going on. You will probably have to consult with an elder care attorney if you don't already have legal paperwork in place.

Are you able to provide more information?

ggilbert - yours is a very sad story and certainly worth telling but I don't think it has anything to do with this question posted by DebFet.

Would you please go to the right hand side of the web page and either re enter or copy and paste your statement under a new question or discussion heading.

GGilbert - I think your "answer" should perhaps be the start of another thread... Medicaid is a different situation, but you could possibly get help - and the hospice topic would be valuable to others - as a different post? It really doesn't seem to be relevant to Deb's issue.

Do not use Hospice of Meadville Pa. When my mother in law was dieing they asked us if we wanted a pastor and we said yes even though teh family was not religion. Well we lost our father because of cult that this pastor was teaching. He has taken over our father and he set her with a woman that is 22 years younger. We have not spoken or heard from our father in 8 months. Hospice of Meadville PA needs investigated and the office needs closed for not addressing teh issue.