It’s Thursday morning, 5:30 AM, listening to roosters crowing in Far North Queensland. Yesterday I met the most intimidating bureaucrat of my visit here so far.
There is an agency called “Centrelink” here in Australia, they are a bit like Social Security in the US, I guess, but they seem to be much “wider” in terms of their powers and interactions with the citizenry. They’re the public pensions agency, basically. Like any agency, they are set up so that in the event a client is disabled or incapacitated, there can be a “nominee” who interacts with them on that client’s behalf. However, in a special twist, Centrelink simply doesn’t have any way of interacting with a person who doesn’t have a “Centrelink number”. The end result – although I am trying to represent my mom while she’s in hospital, Centrelink won’t even acknowledge my existence as a sentient being, because I don’t have a number (and cannot have one, as a non-resident of Australia). It was like being a kind of ghost, to try to talk to them. I heard “I can’t give you that information” over and over. Phrases like “Power of attorney” and “Son” (with accompanying documentation) mean nothing to them. Fortunately, Ann’s friend Kirsten is the official “nominee” and we’ve succeeded in making an appointment with the Centrelink office next Tuesday. I wonder, though… what would have happened if Kirsten, then, had been unavailable or incapacitated too? Does Ann and her information then disappear into a bureaucratic black hole never to emerge again?
I got another application and a half sent off to some care facilities, and had a somewhat circular telephone conversation with one of them – promising in that they might have a spot, but not-promising in that nothing will move forward without some input from Centrelink (see above).
In one text to Kirsten, I told her about the appointment date and time I’d secured, and I wrote “August” instead of “January”. Kirsten called me, alarmed, in and in her frank Australian parlance said, “What the fuck mate, August?” My only excuse for the mistake, I told her, is that looking around, here, the weather is “August weather” (ie high summer).
I spend some time with my mother at the hospital, and her friend Tash came by. Ann was in lower spirits today than yesterday, I think in pain and just annoyed as it penetrated deeper into her awareness just how disabled she’s become. But nevertheless the physio and some nurses had her walking several times, with assistance of a walker. I think she will regain some mobility, if she wants. But that last is key – there are times when it’s clear to me that she doesn’t want… she just seems to deflate and give up, and pep talks can only go so far. Often, to expressions of positivity or optimism, she just becomes angry. This is depression, I understand. It’s not easy to deal with.
There was an amusing incident, as Ann’s hospital room/ward gained a new roommate. An elderly woman was wheeled in in her bed, fast asleep. Some time later, she sat up, suddenly awake and smiling. We started chatting with her, and she clearly had some dementia. She talked a lot about her dad and mum. Tash and I introduced ourselves, and I asked her her name. Her eyes got wide, and she said, with alarm. “Jesus! Christ! I don’t know, hun.” She stared at me. I cheated and looked at her chart. “Betty?” “Oh yes. That might be it.” The she talked about her and her sisters, growing up in Herberton (just down the road a bit from Atherton).
Le wallaby du jour.
