"No Aged Care, or ACAT Assessment"

For the past few months I have been trying to obtain an Aged Care Assessment for my mother, living alone at home. We need the assessment so that home care and residential care can be accessed. The assessment has not been done and I cannot access these services.

The doctor at Geriatric Medicine Wyong Hospital and our GP made assessments and requested the ACAT Assessment last year so that home help could be obtained, as heart medication wasn't being taken. I can't even register for residential accommodation without it.

When I called ACAT in recently I was advised that the assessment had been cancelled due to calls and phone messages to a friend (I was not available at the time), not being answered by ACAT. Her friend assures me that no message had been left. I did not receive any message on my answer machine either, members of my family were not contacted. When I called ACAT I was advised that they couldn't even speak to me, her child, that, that they had no information about me. I have always supplied numerous contact details to the doctors.

I managed to convince ACAT that I had Medical Guardianship and Power of Attorney. I organised an ACAT Assessment. When I called my mother's friend, she advised me the assessment was scheduled for two weeks later. It has taken 8-9 months of waiting to try and get this assessment. We were advised that the wrong address had been visited during one visit, assessors did not appear to check with neighbours if they had the correct addresst and that assessment was not done.

My mother's friend, neighbours and I believe my mother is in danger, she needs residential care as a matter of urgency. I have been receiving concerning information on my mother, she is struggling and putting herself in danger. One organisation was going to call the police because she had been harassing them.

I have been advised by the geriatrician that my mother can make decisions, she chooses to cut up her blister pack and hide her pills! When a person actively tries to deceive doctors by removing pills from the blister packs and hiding lifesaving medication, so that a serious health and safety issue cannot be discovered, confirms that a person is not making informed, rational decisions.

We all believe my mother is not in any fit state to live at home, even with home help. How can we have this matter escalated, my mother needs to be in residential care, now?