Hi everyone
I'm here because my partners dad is receiving end of life care at a Marie Curie hospice. Her dad is very submissive when it comes to medical care - "the doctor is always right & knows what he's doing". My partner is being made to feel that she is not being allowed to have any say in the care he receives because she is not the patient. He has been taking paracetamol for the pain that accompanies advanced liver cancer, but has received morphine, or a derivative, for a swelling around a canula entry. My partner wants to question why, but previous enquiries about other matters have been met with abrasive responses from the nurses.
She is in the process of arranging Power of Attorney for health & finances, but does a relative/carer have any rights when it comes to care being received by a loved one?
Hello JustHelpingOut,
I'm sorry to hear of the problems your partner is having with the hospice her father is receiving care at.
I'm afraid I don't know precisely what rights she has in relation to him, but suggest you contact the Macmillan helpline which should be able to help or point you in the right direction.
You can obtain contact information etc. by Clicking here
Macmillan Support Line - 0808 808 00 00, 7 days a week between 8am-8pm
I’m sorry to read about the difficulties your partner is having around her dad’s care. We have been through obtaining POA for health and finances for my in laws-one with cancer and one with dementia, so my experience comes from that. What I can say about that is that it can be a fairly long process to obtain the documents-it took us several months for these to be registered.
For us, my father in law is mentally alert and well and we have no say over his treatment. He has made all decisions himself, as is his right, and we need to respect those decisions even if we may not agree with them. The POA doesn’t confer any special rights on us while my fil is of sound mind, and he is also of the mindset that he accepts what the doctors say and questions nothing. My partner has attended appointments with him, and has been able to ask questions there but is not part of any decision making process.
The patient has full autonomy while they are mentally capable, and sometimes that can be hard for us when we might wish they were making a different decision. If the patient gives permission, then it’s possible for the relative to ask questions and have things explained but the relative really doesn’t have rights to make decisions on treatment etc in our experience.
Sarah xx
I am sorry this is difficult for all of you. I have stage 4 cancer and one of the first things I did when diagnosed was to put power of attorney in place for both health and finances. As others have said, they take some time to be registered (although I think timelines are better now than they were a few years ago). Importantly, they have no effect whatsoever unless and until I lose capacity. So they won’t give you any rights unless and until he loses capacity. After which I hope you would honour his wishes. There are various ways such wishes can also be recorded. It’s difficult when a relative doesn’t wish to question things but it’s entirely their right. Probably the only row I have had with my husband throughout this was when he wanted to ask for a prognosis, and I didn’t. From my point of view, it wouldn’t help me to have some sort of use by date over my head. He just wanted to be able to plan the future. We didn’t ask.
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