Assistance to Seniors

There is an organisation called Help in La Jara near Denia that offers a range of services. They have a website . Check it out

Thank you. I will check out their website.

Hi,

My wife has used the services of Help Benidorm in the past after hospital treatment. Their help was excellent. Highly recommended. 

https://www.helpbenidorm.org/

There are branches in other areas.

Steve 

The organisation yokwan is referring to in La Xara is called Help Of Denia.

There is also another company that supplies care directly, English, called 3C (they are currently providing care for a neighbour of mine) I'll attach a screenshot for you but you would need to check their website for info.

I can't speak from experience, hopefully others can, but my understanding from anecdotal evidence is that after a discharge from a hospital stay there is very little or no official after care. I've also heard it said that it's often up to relatives and friends to provide hospital meals, quite alarming for those who have no relatives here and may not be able to rely on the goodwill of friends! (Wouldn't it be ironic to have your life saved by a heroic surgeon only to die of hunger 2 weeks later....haha)

Now I don't know if this is true, so if your experience is different please let me know. Of course it might be different from hospital to hospital depending on ownership etc. All towns and villages do have Social Services, I think administered through the Town Hall (?) but I have no idea what their remit is in terms of eg care for housebound people. 

As a single guy I have investigated which care home I would want to go to in the event of severe incapacitation and inability for self care, and I have put that information into my file marked "What to do in the event of incapacitation and death" which lives in a place where my relatives arriving from England know where to find it. Morbid, gloomy, yes, but I would wish my relatives to have at least the minimum admin hassle possible in the event ....

Sorry for the ramble, if anyone can add, please do..

Steve

The public Hospitals will get you over the acute phase once discharged you are on your own.

When I was in hospital in 2018, the care in hospital was fine nothing exceptional but adequate, I was only given small bottles of water from time to time, I was discharged barely able to walk or look after myself. 

My 95 year old mother has been hospitalised twice in Denia, once for a broken hip a couple of years ago and once recently for an AB resistant infection, requiring IV medication. I stayed in the room with her the first time, as she was kept for much longer than usual being extremely ill as well as her accident. It was expected that I would help with meals, ie help her to eat as the food was of course provided, and help with personal washing and so forth. Nurses here do medical care, auxiliares do much day to day ‘looking after’, although I was not expected to do bedpan duties, although of course I helped under their supervision when staff were too busy. The second time I didn’t stay but visited twice daily for the same reasons.

The medical care was excellent, but I was told on a Friday that she would be leaving on a Tuesday and where would she be going? Our own house being totally unsuitable, stairs etc, left me with a couple of days to find a Residencia/Care Home over a weekend, when no one answers their phone. There was no question of her returning to her own home, it was not even an option as she could no longer have coped. Luckily, through the good offices of a Spanish friend with contacts, we managed to find her temporary accommodation until a more appropriate place became available.

It is still expected that families will take much of the responsibility of elder care which is the Spanish norm. Other than that, it must be paid for privately, although there are some financial help schemes for Spanish nationals, but I believe not over generous.

My experience is similar to Stephanie’s. My 83 y.o mother managed to get a gallstone stuck in her colon ( it sat with a bunch of them for 20 years before trying to do a great escape )  in 2020  Ended up in emergency surgery at Elche . Caught pneumonia in there ( not that they noticed - I was the one who insisted her breathing was abnormal & they huffed & puffed before realising she did indeed have a serious problem and had to go back to ICU🤦‍♀️) 

Anyhoo, I was asked if I was going to do her personal “ maintenance “ and were quite aghast when I declined.  They were not very caring in how they took care of bathing etc.  I had to alert them when the drips were empty.  Change her bed pads etc etc.  when it came to after care at home , there was nothing offered , just a phone call 3 weeks later which we had to initiate . If I wasn’t here mum would have struggled for the first week for sure.  Took her a while to get her strength back.   It is something you need to be aware of if you are on your own . 

Hi JAndrew,

When a neighbour's husband died, she required home care because she had dementia.  This was organised through our Town Hall, but she had to pay for it.  It allowed her to stay in her home for a further year, during which time her family made arrangements fir her to return to a care home in the UK.

As morbid as this may seem, I think you're wise to think about it now.  Like Steve, I have a file of important documents with relevant instructions for my inheritors, but I hadn't thought to include information that might be needed should I become incapacitated - something else for the 'to do' list!

Kind regards, 

Kim