Jacqui is in a difficult situation with her PA.

Hello Diary – it’s Jacqui.
Well, before the isolation came into force, I was already distancing myself and not going to meetings. They now started doing (inaudible).
I thought it was important to keep my mental health stable and I’d already started doing it. I have been keeping myself calm.
Yesterday I got a text from my PA. She said, “Hi,” then due to the circumstances and the Coronavirus and the temporary suspension of her services, she would be invoicing me for fifty percent of our usual monthly invoice, as a retainer to keep her for when everything’s settled and we can go out again, because, if I don’t, then she will get other work and she can’t guarantee that she’ll be able to be my PA.
Well, blow me down, I was really, really shocked. Well, I did answer to say that I was quite taken aback and I didn’t feel comfortable having to pay a fifty percent retention fee for the next couple of months while we’re in isolation and I also said to her, “I do think you should be more careful, the way you word things to a person with Dementia”.
I didn’t tell her but I had a terrible night’s sleep – I don’t think I did sleep – I woke myself up shouting. When Paula got here, she would sit here and cuddled into me, trying to obviously calm me down. I really didn’t expect it to affect me that much.
One thing I don’t understand it that we don’t even have a contract. It is done through the Memory Clinic, there’s no contract between her and I and if she’s on holiday, I don’t see anybody and there is no contract, so now wanting to invoice me fifty percent of the usual monthly invoice now sounds to be really strange.
I also thought that, maybe she could have contacted Carol rather and spoken to her than rather drop me with something like this, because she is talking to the Key Worker at the Memory Clinic and she knows that Carol is the person that would speak on my behalf.
So, I wondered really what other people had thought, are they getting the same thing from their PA? Even if you don’t have a contract with them, are they invoicing you fifty percent of your usual invoice? Just something I thought might be good to talk about.
Thank you,
Bye bye.