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Mom is 94, bed bound with dementia. A couple toes have fungi. Hospice RN said she is not trained to do it. She said she will try to trim them when they began curling under. I live 700 miles away. Who is responsible for this? She is with hospice but before she was with Medicare Advantage plan. I have privately hired caregivers but they do not feel comfortable cutting them either.

RNs, LPNs and CNAs are not allowed to cut toenails. Has to do with infection if not done right.
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Reply to JoAnn29
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A Podiatrist cuts the toe nails . I used a tree tea Oil Body wash for my Dads Feet and got rid of the Fungus . The fungus is not In the toe nails but the skin Itself .
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Reply to KNance72
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This is hardly the time to be concerned with thick nails and the cutting of same. When this is done it must be done by a podiatrist. But she is currently in end of life care. To get nails this infested with fungus and this thick, long and curling wasn't the result of a few months without care. It was ongoing over a very long period of time. Treatment of fungus in nails in both uncertain in outcome, and requires strong systemic anti fungals. That's no longer an option. A trimming, when not done regularly and consistently causes a condition such as this when it is almost impossible to do. It would require a specialist. And there is little reason, at this stage to do it.

You should likely discuss with the social workers whether coverage for a podiatrist to come in home can be got under Hospice care, but hospice care doesn't normally cover "treatments" and there is really no REASON to treat this now. I don't give you any hope that this can be accomplished but it costs nothing to try.

Again, this is now for a medical doctor if you can find one who agrees there is SOME reason to do this. I doubt that you can, but I wish you luck.
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Reply to AlvaDeer
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Bulldog54321 Mar 6, 2025
Right, antifungals will kill her liver but hospice likely won’t prescribe that anyway
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Ask the hospice nurse to ask around to see if any foot doctors will come to do it.

Fungus on the nail isn’t going to harm her, though I am sure it might be unsightly to look at.
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Reply to Bulldog54321
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This is always a challenging situation. If you’re very fortunate, there might be a podiatrist in her area that makes house calls but I don’t know if hospice would cover this. Unless the nails are causing discomfort or pain, I don’t know that hospice will do anything. I can’t say that I blame the caregivers or nurse for not attempting to cut them-typically a podiatrist uses a Dremel type tool on really thick nails.
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Reply to MidwestOT
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