When my dad was taken into hospital, I had built up I would call it a friendship rather than father/son relationship, it wasn't known whether he would come out again or not, so there was me, my aunts and uncles as a group to keep things like bills ticking over.
It was actually quite frustrating as everything ended up being left to myself, and I learnt a lot about the lack of organisational skills some of my relatives have.
I'm not too sure as to why I got so involved in it all, but the rest of the family weren't doing much and when the social worker asked for a contact name no one else was to be found.
So for about 3/4 months I focused on getting everything sorted, I was made what's called an appointee here in Ireland/UK, which basically means I had authority to open a bank account in my name and have all his welfare benefits paid into it to enable me to pay all the bills, this was all signed off by doctors and social workers.
In the end it was a lot of work, social workers seem to have meetings about meetings most of the time, and the volume of paperwork for everything was insane, right down to endless doctor and consultant appointments. I would definitely say it's an all or nothing thing, if you're not up for the commitment or the giving up of your own free time then don't get involved.
In the end my dad died, I didn't feel much about getting involved in keeping his affairs while he was in hospital, don't think he even knew, but I guess something inside me can be happy I did a good job, the best I could!!
