I wish to report an incident that occurred in my mom's home on Thursday, February 5 involving Silvercare, the homecare caregiving service we had been hiring for a year. My mom is 82 years old with dimentia and lives in her own home. I am my mom's only family in Rockford. I hired/scheduled them to take care of my mom for an overnight shift, the hours scheduled were from 1:00pm 2/5/09 until 7:00pm, the next night, Friday 2/6/09. I was going to Chicago for the night. They assured me the shift was fully staffed and covered, our regular daily caregiver for days, and a second person for the night hours. I left my mom's house at 1:10pm on 2/5/09 after going over everything with Kathy our caregiver. She confirmed with me that she had all the phone numbers she would need if she needed to contact me and assured me to have a good time, she was at the helm. At 3:00pm I called my mother to tell her I had arrived safely and asked to put Kathy the caregiver on the phone. My mother informed me the caregiver was not there, she had left, she did not know where she went. I asked her to look in the driveway for the caregiver's car. My mom replied her own car was the only car in the driveway. I immediately called Silvercare and talked to Jerry the manager. I told her that my mom reports there is no caregiver on the premises! Instead of being surprised like I expected, the manager informed me that the caregiver would be back, that she had left around 1:30pm to pick her husband up from work because his car wouldn't start. I asked the manager who was there with my mom? She said no one was there with my mom. I upsettedly repeated "where is my caregiver? Who is taking care of my mom?!!!" The manager replied NO ONE. She informed me the caregiver would be back around 4:00pm! My sister then got on the phone with Jerry and ordered her to get herself to my mom's to cover the shift. I received a call from the manager at around 3:30pm stating that she was now at my mom's and all was well, my mom was doing her excercise pedaller when she got there. But this was a dangerous set of conditions for my mom because she cannot use this pedaller unless she is supervised, because with no concept of time, she has overused it recently until she developed a limp. The caregiver Kathy was well aware of this injury and had been withholding mom's pedalling until she was better. I told the manager, "I'm not paying for this shift." and she replied, "No you're not." Additionally I asked the manager and later the caregiver why I had not ever received any call informing me that THERE WAS A PROBLEM? The manager could not answer this question. Besides job abandonment—walking off the job—Silvercare's management and staff committed a breach of contract. They left my 82 year old mom with dimentia alone to fend for herself. I feel they recklessly endangering the safety of my mom, her pets, her home and property while I was 1 1/2 hours away. They have also committed time theft as they have dishonestly fully invoiced for this shift, doctored time sheets, had my mom sign them and removed CNA notes from our home before I could read them.
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