topic Help for a friend in Supporting family and friends

Help for a friend

Xanadu4555 — Sun, 24 Sep 2017 00:02:22 GMT

Hello my name is Coralie and I have a dear friend who needs my help but I don't know where to go or how to help.

I visit often and have seen a gradual decline in both her health and her husbands.

lastest visit she was telling me how depressed she felt and she has no energy, hasn't been out of the house in weeks ,so their is next to no food.

Her health is suffering and the dramatic change in her is like a walking skeleton.

i urged her to get a home visit doctor out but she is terrified of being admitted to hospital.

Could someone give me ideas on how to help please

Help for a friend

Croix — Sun, 24 Sep 2017 00:29:33 GMT

Dear Coralie~

Welcome here to the Forum. I can see you are in a worrying and difficult position, and not surprisingly many post here with the same sort of problem.

The short answer is of course your friend - and her husband - need to see a doctor. The obvious thing is this may or many not be a mental health issue, it could be something else, and a doctor is the only one qualified to get to the bottom of the matter. There are other reasons after all where people could display those symptoms.

Trying to get someone to seek medical help if they are frightened of the consequences can be very hard, you can only try to persuade. Does your friend have other friends, family, children who might be enlisted to help here?

Contacting a doctor can be done in a variety of ways and does not lead straight to hospitalization unless there is a very real danger of loss of life in the immediate future. If your friend simply won't go to, or have in, a GP see if she will contact a 24/7 help line like ours (1300 22 4636) for advice and maybe get things started.

I'd be grateful if you came back and talked more

Criox

Help for a friend

Xanadu4555 — Sun, 24 Sep 2017 21:45:33 GMT

Thankyou for your advice.

I am going to chat with staff at my local hospital today and see if they can assist me.

Fingers crossed I can help.

I will keep you updated

Help for a friend

geoff — Sun, 24 Sep 2017 22:10:30 GMT

hi Coralie, I agree with Croix, it's not so much as something that needs to be done, it's urgent and has to be done.
Let us know what the hospital say, or go to her doctor's office and ask if they can provide an urgent house call, secondly is she able to order groceries online, or perhaps you could do this for her, as long as you get reimbursed. Geoff.