How can I get a patient advocate or social worker?

I need someone to manage my life, perhaps find a home I could go into. I am feeling sick, crazy, completely unable to function. The best I could do was the social worker who visited me on request (it took 24 hours while I lay on a short gurney) while I was in the ER recently. He told me he could do nothing for me. Then he gave me a sack of complicated looking forms and pamphlets and told me to read them "when you have the time." I can't easily figure out anything. I came home, put the sack next to my bed. Today I was determined to read at least some of it somehow but...I have lost the sack. I searched and searched. I don't know where it went. In a way I am relieved, because in the shape I am in, it would have baffled and frustrated me and set off another panic attack.

I belong to Kaiser. Supposedly there ARE patient advocates but I cannot get in touch with any and no one seems to know anything.

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greenmountaingal · 70-79, F

Update: Found pamphlets, sorted them out. One booklet was semi-useful. However, it lists hundreds of Board and Care homes and I am not able to make hundreds of phone call nor drive around that much to check them out. Still believe I need a social worker. My Kaiser therapist is a psychiatric social worker. When I see her next, I will appeal to her for help.

Fernie · F

@greenmountaingal Someone needs to guide you to the right agency and people. Social Workers are meant to do that

greenmountaingal · 70-79, F

@Fernie I was in the ER at a Kaiser Hospital for 48 hours begging for a social worker to help me. Finally, on the 2nd day a social worker came to see me on my gurney and told me I did not qualify for any kind of help. And in spite of an infection, chills and fever, 8 days and nights without food or sleep plus my advanced age, I did not even qualify for admission to the hospital. But I am going to keep trying. It would help if I had a primary care physician managing and coordinating my case but my primary care physician quit on the day all this began. I got another primary care physician but his nurse refuses to let me make an appointment because he is busy with a special situation or something like that. I am not in good physical and mental health, and find it hard to keep fighting the system.

Fernie · F

@greenmountaingal You need to focus on agencies that work specifically with Seniors. To everyone else we are no longer viable or worth the time. You most certainly ARE eligible for Social Services!!!! You spoke to incompetent idiots of which, in the Social Service world in general, there are many.

greenmountaingal · 70-79, F

@Fernie Thanks. That is reassuring. The psychiatric social worker I saw seemed eager to help me but it was only a Q & A intake session. In a few weeks I will see her again. I will see my psychiatrist in a week. It is hard to unravel social services, and I suspect you are right about the idiocy factor.

Fernie · F

@greenmountaingal be that squeaky wheel and you'll get to where you need to be.

greenmountaingal · 70-79, F

In the ER, I was surrounded by guys handcuffed to stretchers in Orange jump suits from the County jail. (Two of them tried to escape while I was there with cops chasing them down the halls as they pulled fire alarms as a distraction). They got plenty of attention with social workers and others talking to them. They were attended to within an hour or so of their arrival. I feel like I am not considered as valuable in my world as someone who got shot robbing a store!

Fernie · F

@greenmountaingal that is not the place you will find help...yikes!

greenmountaingal · 70-79, F

@Fernie Thanks, Fernie. I will squeak like crazy!🐭

greenmountaingal · 70-79, F

@Fernie No kidding! It would've been a sitcom if I'd been well and watching it on TV.

Fernie · F

@greenmountaingal 🤭

Fernie · F

@Fernie would I be correct in thinking (been there) that this is all very overwhelming and on some level it's paralyzed you?

greenmountaingal · 70-79, F

@Fernie Chronic UTIs are painful and debilitating and now they sometimes go right to delirium which is very frightening. There are many factors to sort out about what to do and I am feeling overwhelmed. I am trying to not let it paralyze me so I am doing what the doctor recommends, trying to walk each day a little more each day and forcing myself to do regular chores.

Fernie · F

@greenmountaingal and all this " I am not able to make hundreds of phone call nor drive around that much to check them out" ..overwhelming. Keep trying because you absolutely need help and support

greenmountaingal · 70-79, F

@Fernie Thank you. I won't give up. The meds are helping. I have another appointment with my psychiatrist coming up, and in another couple of weeks will see the psychiatric social worker.

Every day I tell myself to be grateful that I live in a beautiful quiet safe place. Things could be worse. Right now science is working hard on a cure or effective treatment for UTIs. Many new antibiotics and a vaccine are on the fast track at the FDA. There is already a vaccine available in Germany. I'm taking a lot of d-mannose which helps a bit. And I force myself to walk each day.

Thank you so much for your concern. It helps to know people care.

Fernie · F

@greenmountaingal I do care. I know it will all come together for you

greenmountaingal · 70-79, F

@Fernie Thank you. I am trying. And your support helps.