It’s an emergency: A nursing home administrator calls. The husband of a resident is demanding to take his wife home. The problem is that she needs 24-hour supervision because of her dementia. The problem is that the husband is soon to be disabled by major surgery, and is perhaps beside himself.
Here is an opportunity for a business (the nursing home)to do a good thing: The wife’s health is put at risk if she goes home to her husband. They can choose to ignore the new POA she signed when she had no idea what she was signing. They can choose the high road, the human road: to protect her.
It is a gut-wrenching decision for the nursing home: why get into the middle of a family feud? I do not know how they will go.
It does not have to be confrontation: What if the nursing home had someone invite him to talk about what he most deeply wants? His wife always cared for him in past illnesses and now he is facing disability: surely she will come home and tend his wounds. Only she cannot. Maybe his needs could be met in some other way. Conversation is almost always a good option.
:- Doug.
