Wife forced to divorce husband to get him the right medical care
IT’S the decision no one should ever be forced to make — divorce your loved one so they get the right medical care or stay married and watch them suffer. It’s the unenviably predicament Colleen Mitchell finds herself in. FIND OUT WHY
NSW
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COLLEEN Mitchell fears she has no choice but to divorce her beloved husband to get him the medical care he desperately needs.
Nine weeks ago Wayne Mitchell suffered a devastating stroke and the 55-year-old father-of-two can no longer walk, talk or eat and needs 24-hour care, meaning he has to go into a nursing home.
Nursing homes in the Western Sydney area have told the family they will have to come up with a bond of between $200,000 and $700,000 just to get Mr Mitchell a bed and daily costs on top of that could hit $1000 a week.
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But, if he was a pensioner with no assets, he could get a bed without paying a bond and merely lose the bulk of his pension.
“It’s a huge financial impact. We have a house but there is a $400,000 mortgage on it, I can’t pull it out and still feed my girl,” Mrs Mitchell said.
“If I divorce him, he is on his own, he can get the pension and he only pays (the home) his pension.
“How ridiculous is that?
“I’ve never received any family payments and I get slugged because I work hard.
“I’ve been married 21 years and I’m seriously considering divorce.
“Cough up $700,000 or divorce. It’s only a piece of paper isn’t it and now I’m like a single parent.”
Doctors have told the family Mr Mitchell cannot be rehabilitated because he cannot obey commands, which means he does not qualify for the few brain injury rehabilitation beds.
He is also fed through a peg, which means he needs one-on-one care and, as the family quickly found out, there are no facilities for people like Mr Mitchell apart from nursing homes.
“The only option is an aged care facility, all the doctors and nurses have told us there is nothing targeted at young stroke victims,” daughter Morgan Mantle said.
“That’s not something we can afford and mum still has 15-year-old Bailey at home, and we are not the only people in this situation.”
According to Bronwyn Morkham from Young People in Nursing Homes, an alliance set up to address the problem of those under 65 entering nursing homes, there are 6200 young people being cared for in aged-care facilities.
Most younger people in aged care having a brain injury (58 per cent), late onset degenerative neurological disabilities such as multiple sclerosis (14 per cent) and Huntington’s disease (9 per cent).
“Where do you go? There isn’t anywhere that can take someone with that level of need and nursing homes do not even have mandatory nursing staff ratios so the care he needs probably can’t even be delivered, the nursing home will try their best but it’s not resourced,” Ms Morkham said.
“We have a young man who had a stroke and was making progress in rehab but then he went into a nursing home, there was no-one to take him to the toilet so he is incontinent now and bed-bound and has put on 50 kilograms, it’s absolutely shocking.
“The royal commission into aged care needs to look at this.”
Carolyn Finis from the Summer Foundation, which also aims to get young people out of nursing homes, said the National Disability Insurance Scheme will now cover some daily costs of nursing home care after the Foundation revealed that charging means-tested daily fees was forcing families to divorce.
But the NDIS does not cover the basic daily accommodation fee.
The bond, however, is still the main problem for families with assets.
In desperation, the Mitchell family are crowd-funding to set up a facility to cater for similar stroke victims.
“Surely there are others out there in this bind. Surely we could all get a house and just do it, there is nothing for young people. There needs to be a facility for stroke victims. It’s not a choice, it’s a necessity,” Mrs Mitchell said.