So crazy flying monkey aunt who lives out of state has reared her ugly head again. She is the only other family that FIL has and he stays in constant contact with her (I'm Team take his cell phone away, but DH and SIL aren't there yet). We have ZERO issues with the facility that he is in. We are actually very happy with it.
He has dementia and SHE refuses to accept that - well she did until very recently. She believes EVERY single thing he tells her and takes him literally in spite of anything that we tell her. So for example if he tells her that he has gone HOURS with no one coming in to his room - she will take him at his word - when we can literally refute his story and prove it to her (for example - we were THERE that day, as well as on the phone with him and heard people come into his room multiple times).
We have tried explaining to her that he has become unable to track time in addition to the fact that he is still very angry and has a life time of engrained lying to fall back on instinctively - so exaggeration is his go to response. And that there is no evidence that anyone is mistreating him and loads of evidence that he is being well taken care of (we are not naïve, we know that things happen, but we know that he is being well taken care of - he is just not being taken care of "to his standards" meaning that they are not immediately responding to his needs, fawning all over him, and treating him like he is special.)
My FIL - as most of you are aware - is a narcissist. He is just finding out at 90 years old- that you don't always get what you want. That's a hard pill to swallow.
But Flying Monkey aunt went too far and we don't even know when, just know recently. She apparently called the Ombudsman in our state (she lives 800 miles away and has not seen him in 10 years) because she felt that he was being mistreated and we were not doing anything about it. And then she put him on the phone with them.
Apparently what FINALLY got through to her was that when the Ombudsman stated that she would be happy to investigate on his behalf - but she needed his permission to do so - he immediately retracted everything he had said. And refused to give his permission to investigate further. Pair this with the fact that when given the chance to roast them (anonymously) on a survey he gave them a glowing response in every way. She maintains that he is afraid he will be kicked out. We maintain that he knows he isn't being truthful with her.
But SHE says she had an epiphany about his mental state when he suddenly recanted what he said and refused to let them investigate after months of complaints to her.
My question - does anyone know - even without his permission - if a complaint is "unsubstantiated" - does the ombudsman still have to investigate? I would hate for the facility to come under investigation because my FIL was telling tall tales and his overly dramatic sister decided to bypass his entire family, POA, Next of Kin and go right for the jugular for no reason.
I mean - I don't see any reason why even if they were investigated there would be a problem FOR them (except to have the complaint on the record, which we don't want) - but it would still be mortifying for us that his entitlement and tantrums brought something like that on the facility because the two braniacs put their heads together and decided to scorch the earth because she thought her narcissistic brother (who she KNOWS and has admitted is a lying narcissist) couldn't just wait his turn. Because she is in denial about his dementia and rather than trying to keep him calm she instigated and agitated him .
Do we need to let them know this happened? Call the Ombudsman and launch a counter claim? Leave it alone entirely? HELP!
4 Answers
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If you have the name of the ombudsman, sure, give a call and explain your Dad's sister just as you explained it here to us.
Me, as my Moms POA would have banned my Aunt from seeing my Mom if she had caused these kind of problems. She always had something to say about how things were done. But, she passed a year before I had to bring Mom into my home.
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When she calls you 2 weeks later begging you to take him back, just laugh hilariously for a couple of minutes, then hang up the phone.
Not a serious suggestion, but a nice scenario to dream about.
The POA should then tell FIL that if he lies again, POA will resign and he can figure out his own care.