Ah, okay. So instead of paying for a real home health care aide, she’s taking the whole stipend and paying him part and keeping the rest? Well, they’re quite a pair, aren’t they? BOH, surely you can do better than this guy.
Well, only if my interpretation is correct. I can only imagine how this came about:
Her: “You’re hot. What is it you do for a living?”
Him: “I’m a home health aide.”
Her: “Really? It just so happens that I have cancer.”
Him: “I could take good care of you.”
Her: “Awesome! I’ll specifically request you to be my caregiver. I’ll just give you half the stipend or reimbursement so we can have more money for our dates.”
Him: “Sweet!”
I’m also confused by these (bolding mine):
So wait, are you having sex with him or not?
And I’m not sure how to interpret this:
Er, if he’s still having sex with her (and with you), then he’s not being monogamous.
So, language nitpick aside, correct me if I’m wrong, but this suggests that if he’s having sex only with you, you would decide to have sex only with him. So if he’s still having sex with her, does that mean that you are going to have sex on the side too? Are you still going to have sex with him even if he’s still sleeping with her? Neither of these seems conducive to the “health reasons” cited above.
(And on preview: what they said about the money stuff.)
This whole situation just seems hinky.
Either that or
Her: “I only get a stipend for home health…can we work out some sort of deal?”
Him: “Well, I charge this much per diem…”
Her: “How about if I sleep with you?”
Him: “Sweet!”
Either way…holy crap.
Again, it seems like you’re getting all sorts of alarm bells in your head that for some reason, you’re trying to talk yourself out of listening to. Why?
We have sex once or twice.
My wanting to know if he was having sex with anyone else raised concerns about health, as far as std’s.
It seemed too early to say, “Its only me.”
Now, I would stop seeing him if he kept having sex with her.
He says he isn’t, but then, wouldn’t you?(not you, per se, but anyone)
BoxofNothing, your last post was very, very confusing, to say the least. One thing, however, that I grabbed from it, right or wrong, was that the ex requested your boyfriend as her aide. This might mean that they had some sort of relationship prior to his becoming a home health aide, and if they’re sharing the proceeds…well, that is a little fishy, if not downright fraudulent.
BoxofNothing, while nothing requres you to spill all the details on an anonymous message board, your storytelling is haphazard and leaving gaping holes. When you leave holes, people fill in the worst, and then assume the worst about you. In the future, here or on other boards, I would suggest you avoid such conversations or gather your thoughts and be very, very detailed.
For example, instead of:
, you can avoid problems by saying “He’s a certified home health aide who works with a local hospice.” or “He’s a home health aide who contracts independently”. Telling people he went out with you and your daughter, but leaving out her age, also got lots of gears churning. Reduce the distance of the jump for readers to reach conclusions.
I will try and do so in the future, nice person. I am trying not to give any identifying details out, after reading these comments. I had not thought of the client/professional angle before.
It sounds like some soap opera after reading it back. I wish I were making it up. I’m not that good a writer, however.
Also, for those of you doubting that Home Health Care comes under a medical ethical guideline, here is a link to U of M’s Ethics Module for long-term geriatric care. Home health care is included.
You can find the National Association for Home Care and Hospice’s (NAHC) Code of Ethics here. Note that membership in NAHC is voluntary. No mention is made regarding personal relationships with clients, nor did I see anything in Flea’s link. I scanned both quickly, so please let me know if I missed it. HHC Agencies are well within their rights to set standards above and beyond, and could include forbidding relationships with clients. A similar site for NJ stated that personnel policies must be written and kept on-file at the Agencies. However, unlike a psychologist, psychiatrist, psychotherapist, or hypnotist, there seems to be no overarching code of ethics forbidding such behaviour.
Not that I saw. He may not be breaking a written rule, but there is an overarching ethic to being a healthcare provider, in general, that frowns upon this sort of thing.
This looks like a job for
Ask the guy who knew his wife for only six weeks before he proposed!
So I have a little experience with whirlwind courtships.
Let’s strip this incident down to the basics.
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Your boyfriend said he couldn’t see you or even talk with you because he had someone coming over that evening, and he would have to get up early the next day.
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The someone was a person he had admitted to having a casual affair with.
Maybe the someone actually IS a chemo patient and he was simply helping her out that evening.
But you don’t seem comfortable with that explanation, and his evasiveness (“he would explain at the appropriate time.”)
Isn’t that enough of a warning right there?
Everything else makes the whole thing smell even more, but the basic smell is enough.
Either you trust this guy’s explanation, or you don’t.
And it sounds to me like you don’t.
No, it doesn’t. However, if you read these two paragraphs:
and this sentence:
The governing body expects agencies to inform their employees what is and is not ethical behavior. However, since you didn’t feel up to taking my bet and the guidelines are very general, I decided to call and spoke with a very nice lady whose privacy I will respect here, but you can call the number at the top of the “contact us” page and verify what I’m about to post. She informed me of the following:
“If the patient is coerced, this regulating body is contacted and we will determine disciplinary action.
If it’s consensual: It’s frowned on, and certainly considered unethical, but we leave it to each specific agency to determine disciplinary action. In most cases, the employee would be terminated. On the other hand, it is up to you, the health care provider, whether or not you feel it’s appropriate to report this.”
I couched it as though it were a hypothetical, that I may or may not have a dialysis patient who is seeing their hospice care worker.
Holy crap.
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most HHAs do not operate independently–they need the overseeing of RNs, usually through a home health agency.
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Many, many aides do work “under the table”–but here’s the rub: if a pt is injured or hurt (not just physically), they are allowed to sue said HHA. Without the agency’s umbrella of liability coverage–said HHA is up a creek.
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It has always been my understanding that ANY behavior undertaken by health care personnel, including HHAs, is subject to scrutiny by the licensing or certifying board. I have yet to find such a board that does NOT have some sort of ethical statement or morals clause.
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Health care personnel(of either gender) who sleep with clients/pts/relatives of same show their lack of ethics loud and clear. The whole they share the money–or He pays Her nonsense–is too bizarre for me to comment upon.
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Bottom line: this guy spells trouble. Big time trouble.
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To involve your daughter at this stage is not a choice I would have made. She should NOT be your best friend–you are her parent. Be friendly, love her to death, but you are the adult here.
Holy shit–who woulda thunk…
Found something. NJ Guidelines:
NJ expressly forbids it. That was the only one I could find with my google-fu. Prohibitions for social workers, psychologists, psychiatrists and nurses were common, however.
I will admit that my assessments of Home Health Aides are formed mostly on the ~ half dozen I’ve met. Most were working “under the table”, and likely undocumented aliens. None of them were qualified enough that I would consider them a “health care professional”. In none of these cases were physical relationships likely, but that’s really besides the point.
Now, I don’t know the age and condition of the ex-, nor the age and condition of Mr. X. Mr. X could well be preying on ex-; ex- may be playing Mr. X for the splitting of the fees. Both would be wrong. On the other hand, ex- and Mr. X could be equals and the relationship could be genuine. I won’t condemn it just out of hand just because he is, in what I’ve seen in my limited experience, a maid with a title.
Hm…either you’re being derisive of HHW or you don’t really know what their duties entail. I can’t find a maid out here who’s willing to clean the refrigerator, much less bathe me. Either that or you got one hell of a maid, buddy.
Since we are just shooting from the hip on most of this here goes mine.
it has been tree weeks. Three Weeks. He knew someone before he was with you. So? He hid or lied about her? No. I suspect they may have know each other before they were in this “professional relationship” with each other. Possibly before she was even diagnosed with cancer.
She has the possibility of a stipend as stated but doesn’t really require (or even want) a full time caregiver in her home. “Hey” says she “hows about we work something out? You can come over once or twice a week and see if I need help with anything and I’ll say you have been here eight hours a day, five days of the week.” When the stipend arrives, she cuts him a check for half and they both get over.
later, he meets a woman he feels something for and possibly sees a future with, but it has only been three weeks. Really, far too early to tell for sure but he thinks enough of her to tell her everything about the ex and even the involvement in a shell game.
Ms. Ex later needs to go in for some form of treatment and is scared and needs a friend through the night (no sex implied) and they will go together to the hospital in the morning and he will stay with her until she can be brought home later in the day. During the night there is a lot of talking and laughing and some crying and no real opportunities to dash off a quick email.
This is someone close to him, if only a FWB, still a friend of at least a year (it only says they have been intimate for a year) and he has been asked to help. In addition, it won’t hurt the cover story for him to show up there with her as her HHC helper.
I don’t wish to pass judgement on the deal he has going with her and the Insurance. I only feel that he may not be the evil player that some have painted him to be. Her first impressions over these weeks have been very good, he has been much more up-front and honest than he may have need to be in short relationship, he has brought her around friends so he’s not hiding her, the Ex almost certainly knows of her and probably has heard a great deal of positive talk about her. as to the daughter, it is hard to have a relationship developing and exclude someone so close to you. As 'best friend" she has probably been a sounding board for her Mom and such involvement is , IMO, far better than the exclusion most parents get created for from teenagers in such situations.
To the OP. You like him? You have fun together with him? Your daughter seem to feel alright about him? Then go forth. Enjoy yourself but keep a close eye on your heart. It may go well, may not but I don’t know many relationships of three weeks that can ensure more than that. Many of three years for that matter.
Go slow, go safe, but go and have fun.
After some deliberation, I’m going to put this thread in a forum where the rules are more relaxed.
Moved from IMHO to the Pit.
I’m starting to get a complex, Frank.