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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]My husband and his brothers pay for non-licensed [b]aides to take care of their mother round the clock[/b] in her own apartment. She has always said she did not wish to go to a nursing home. They looked for aides from her own community, speaking her own language and cooking her cuisine. They are cheaper than 
"official" senior aides because they have practically no education (not sure they even graduated high school), but after a decade of shopping for my MIL, cooking, cleaning, giving massages, and helping with very complex medication needs and increasing toileting needs, they have proved themselves very caring and trustworthy people. They are supervised, of course, by the son who lives nearby.

So in the end [b]it comes to less than 5K a month[/b], for an advanced Parkinson's patient owning her own apartment and with one child able to physically visit once every two days.

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$5k/month for round-the clock caregivers would mean less than $7.50/hour. Licensed or not, this doesn't add up.

Round-the-clock care means 168 hrs/week. If you're only paying $5k/month, that's less than $7.50 per hour.

My FIL's round-the-clock caregivers cost $30/hour. Entry level.  For one caregiver on duty 24/7, that's $5,000 per WEEK. [/quote]

PP you replied to. No, the price for night time is much cheaper than the cost for daytime, where shopping/cleaning/cooking/conversation is involved. At night the caregiver has their own room and sleeps, basically, only to be rung if ever my MIL needs help, which she doesn't right now, except the occasional bathroom visit. As I explained, there is no entry level, none of this follows standards, the people hired do not have any degrees. The aides are happy to get the work. Since they're all from my MIL's native country and speak the same language, it's hard to explain, but there is a sense of loyalty and there is a bond. They know my MIL will never fire them until she dies, because she knows they depend on the income. And they know they will be recommended to her friends and relatives if they are trustworthy. So it works out.

It's really nice. There are situations where it's best to do that rather than hire formally trained expensive nurses that have no particular loyalty to the patient. 
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Sorry, but the more you write, the more it sounds as though your family is taking advantage of these untrained aides. Please think about this and treat these people better. 
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PP you replied to. They know exactly what the market is like, PP. This is a community of war refugees. The people that made it here are not stupid, but some of them lack diplomas. The aides are paid a living wage, we know their husbands and children. The family paid to repatriate a husband who had fallen gravely ill abroad, and similar things beyond their wages. The aides understand exactly how much they can ask for beyond which the family could not afford to pay them.

You don't understand because perhaps you've never experienced this type of community before. These people all look after each other. There is no advantage taken. Also, and I don't mean to be rude or presume, but perhaps you prefer to think this way because you have not found such a system within the majority white community in which you live.
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