Hop on hop off bus of caregivers...

Being a professional caregiver is an awful job with horrible pay. You can often make more at Walmart or McDonalds. A very high turnover rate is to be expected.

I understand that this is a difficult situation. My Mom just passed away after 10 years of living with me. I set the boundary early that as her POA that I would match the level of care to her needs. I could not help her if she was bedridden or had dementia issues. I had Doctor orders that she needed help with ADL issues. She accepted what the Dr said not anything that I said. He was male and a trusted person and I was her daughter-namely her child. It worked for 5 years and then her health started to fall apart. Two trips to ER and Rehab and home again was manageable because I had an agency provide care 3 hours a day from 9:30 to 12:30. They made breakfast and gave her a shower and make lunch and put it in a lunch box. They were her companions while I worked. I came home from work at 3. She slept in the afternoon. I observed that nursing homes meant her having a roommate, a 30 minute wait after asking for help and food that was not warm or tasty.

I got an eldercare attorney and transferred most of her money to me but left some in case we needed to go to a nursing home and would need medicaid after she ran out of money. There is a five year look back period. I used her pension and medicare and SS benefits but I had to plan for her to live to 100.
THis really worked out. I spent $120,000 in agency care over 6years but had funds for spend down for nursing home. She had home cooked meals, shower three times a week at a reasonable time and care with ADL tasks and her own room. Her dignity was intact.
My goal was to keep her comfortable but with the knowledge that it would cost $15,000 a month if she needed a nursing home. I did burnout due to 24 hour care and should have had respite care. I am an only child and it did come at a cost to my health.
My point of view was that she could stay home if this care matched her level

of care. Eldercare Atty left some money in her name in the event she needed long term care to get admitted to nursing home and protected funds from medicaid so that her funds could go to her heirs. It was a balance. When she passed away in a nursing home she was covered by medicare due to three nights in a hospital for a broken hip and wrist and transferred to rehab and was there for 7 days and passed away with help from Hospice. I did not want her to die at home because it was more than I could deal with alone.
With careful planning, and some luck, you can make it through the system. I had to fight and educate myself. If she had needed long term care because at the end she was a two person transfer, she had funds to gain entrance to nursing home and 6 months of money for long term care.

She was 95 years old and died on her birthday with comfort from hospice and nursing home. She had paid taxes since she was 17 years old and I believe that she deserved care. I was willing to pay for home health care and I was unpaid caregiver. I feel strongly that the system is broken and based on the idea that there is someone in the family who will provide care. Many are in a different situation. Why is it the people who paid into this system do not get the care they need? I am at peace with the decisions I made. I could have placed her in a nursing home and all of her money would be gone and she would have been on Medicaid. I chose to spend money on her care but not willing to have her go bankrupt and leave her grandchildren with nothing.
I wish all families with this situation to meet the level of care but get an eldercare atty and protect the funds.
My thoughts are with you all.

As someone who has gone through several caregivers for my in laws I would never go privately, I would ONLY go through an agency. What we "learned" after several caregivers is that we have to be honest and upfront ABOUT EVERYTHING. In our case my in laws were running off the caregivers. Literally. Vetting is critical. I cannot say it more emphatically. Caregivers have to know exactly what is expected and what behaviors they will see. Agencies, if they're good, will tell you if they have what you need. It's their forte. Make a detailed list of what is expected ; the type of person you are looking for ( someone your mom can understand - no language barrier, can articulate well) ; talk with your mom about what she wants and the type of person she would feel comfortable with. Interview caregivers, both you and your mom. To be honest...2 years after we began our journey we found that a Male caregiver was the best fit for our in laws.

You don't say what Mom's needs are or what her mental capacity for good judgement is. However, I can relate some of my experiences.

Father in law was very ill with congestive heart failure, and had trouble making it to the toilet, was not mentally sharp any more, very weak overall. He had fallen at home a number of times and finally decided to move to an AL unit where he had friends. He was there for a little less than a year when he passed away.

After a number of falls and medical emergencies, he was deemed too ill to rely on AL services only. Choice: nursing home or we hire caregivers into his unit 24/7. He opted for the hired caregivers. Hired them through an agency that was recommended by the AL management (no financial ties between them.)

We were sent young males from Easter Europe. They had to help him to the toilet, change diapers, sheets, help with some meals. They had a private bedroom. Eventually, they started leaving town for weekends without notice, using his credit card fraudulently, not showing up...which required that my spouse, only in his 30's and trying to build a career, to have to leave work often to attend to the situation.

Caregiving for the elderly can be difficult, boring, physically and psychologically demanding. I think these people just could not take it anymore. So there was a constant churn of caregivers. Your situation will continue for these reasons.

It sounds like your mother needs at least an Assisted Living arrangement, and if she has dementia or cognitive issues, may already need Memory Care. If physically frail and in need of continual nursing care, she may need a nursing home. Some places arrange for a continuum of care through those phases.

I'd give her the straight talk about her needs and the fact that Assisted Living, good ones, have the same staff present for extended periods of time. The care will be more constant and the staff will know your mother's likes and dislikes. To try to arrange caregiving at home and ensure quality and consistency, you'd have to make yourself her geriatric case manager. That's really a full time job in many cases

I have had much better luck hiring caregivers privately. Word of mouth got me two wonderful women. I asked on facebook through friends in my community and found them. Much less expensive this route. These women had worked in hospitals and were fully skilled.

Try
Care.com
Sitter city.com
Or what ever site is in your state.
They work for themselves and are more reliable. Seniors hate the revolving door of faces

I feel your pain. We'r went through 3.5 years, 14 caregivers, 4 different agencies and a few private pay. They left my confused mom alone sometimes for hours while they went out, shopping for themselves etc. Several stole from us, some things irreplaceable, some expensive. One came in and within three first 10 minutes, no joke, rearranged all of the furniture in the caregiver's room. Another, the weekend one, rearranged my entire kitchen. Each one was disrespectful, did not listen, did what they want. One wanted a baby, got pregnant with man she'd had 2 dates with and told him not to worry because our house was a great place to raise a baby. I used to post on her to get support but then people started saying I was making this stuff up. I was not. I stopped posting for several years now I think but I saw your post and really do feel your pain. By the way mom is still with us, she has companions during the day, we'r take care of her food, needs, diapering and cpap help. I'm blessed to have a wonderful husband. Good luck and God Bless.

We had better luck with private caretakers than using an agency. The agency we used would send a different person each time and we'd spend part of the 1st hour they were there going over what they needed to watch for with my mom. One woman wouldn't shut up about her issues and for $20/hour, I certainly didn't give a poo about her issues!! I fired her that night and then she argued with me and wouldn't leave until I called the agency and told them what was happening and they told her to leave. I was too tired and stressed out to put up with that crap.
However, sometimes finding private caretakers is difficult. It's like a secret underground network you have to infiltrate, but once you do, I think you can get better help. Plus they end up making more than the private agency pays their caretakers but it costs you less. In the long run, it's expensive to keep someone at home. We eventually placed my mother in a facility and saved a lot of money.

Mom has no memory issues and only needs help bathing and minor assistance. We only have an aide 3 days a week for 6 hours per day. I could not get anyone for less than 4 hours a day just to bathe her and it does allow me to get out of the house some days. I had a small list of household tasks to fill in the day and once a week laundry, I wasn't expecting a maid, just occasional vacuuming and wiping up the bathroom. We are fortunate that other than moving very very slowly, she is not really in need of assisted living. We have a home nurse in every other week because she has an indwelling catheter. They come and take vitals one trip and the next trip they change her catheter. She is pleasant to all her caregivers so I don't understand why we are having so much trouble keeping one.

I would try for a different agency before hiring privately. As you have experienced, there are real downsides to private hiring. I think having substitutes 2 times in 4 months isn't unreasonable, but what is unreasonable is that the agency knew about the caregiver's being unavailable well in advance and didn't let you know about it. We parted ways with our first agency because of major lack of communication, both with us and with the caregivers. We had our caregiver come one morning when it was snowing very heavily and people were being advised not to drive--we had tried to call the agency to let them know we were fine and she didn't need to come, and she had tried calling to see what they wanted her to do. No answer on their end, not even an answering service or ability to leave voice mail. Caregiver ended up leaving that agency, and we did as well at that point. Our current agency is very good about trying to find a good "fit" for client and caregiver.