The Ballistic 98-Year-Old and the Adoring Acolyte: In Search of Solutions

The 98-year-old wanted to go on vacation.

 A few months ago, she broke her ribs, lost her memory and abandoned her hearing aid, which probably ended up in a restaurant napkin, all $4000 of it. 

She says her phone is defective--that's why she can't hear conversations. She forgets to use her walker and cane and "I don't really need them anymore!" Hence the broken ribs. Four of them, causing intense pain. Opioid level pain.

She's got a pal, thirty years younger, who loves to travel with her, and considers Mom the greatest thing since sliced bread. You would think that's wonderful. Except:

(1) The 98-year-old is paying her companion's expenses. Room, board, transportation.
(2) The adoring acolyte wants to be the only one in her life. What do we need a nurse for? I can take care of her! I sleep 6.5 hours per night! I have Red Cross training!
(3) Everybody else in the old gal's life, including the director of her assisted living residency, thinks a nurse should be on hand.
(4) The B&B owner says the nurse can't sit anywhere but the 98-year-old's bedroom, or the bedroom of her companion. Can't use any toilet but theirs.
(5) When you offer to Yelp the place, the companion says, "Oh, dear God, no." These "wonderful people" shouldn't have their business ruined. She asks me to pay them to tolerate the nurse as a "day guest." 
(6) When the nurse appears, discreetly, and the elderly mother tantrums, the companion says, "But your daughter hired the nurse! She paid for the nurse. You and me, we're friends. I'll protect you from your daughter."
(7) Three murderous letters later, the ancient mom's spidery handwriting indicates her displeasure: "I am already being taken care of by my friend!"

Why am I surprised when my mother's best friend thinks the way my mother thinks? Because the adoring acolyte is reasonably well-educated, Phi Beta Kappa, a professional? But education is no match for delusion. The adoring acolyte wants to proceed "without deception" when the 98-year-old doesn't want a nurse, never wanted a nurse, never agreed to a nurse--although she did, and has already paid for said nurse. The acolyte declines to introduce the nurse as "my good friend!" But it's okay to say, "your daughter hired her." When I didn't.

I can suggest finessing. First, there's calling Mom's sane friends and apprising them of the situation.

Then there's the conversation with Mom herself:

"You are every bit as sane as you ever were, every bit as lucid, and as you say, Mom, you are just as compos mentis as you always were. It's just that there's been some memory loss."

Astoundingly, she agrees. She is indeed every bit as sane as she ever was, every bit as lucid, every bit as compos mentis as she ever was. Compounding the problem are the frailties of age, the memory loss, and the companion who's every bit as compos mentis as Mom. But who is currently her health care proxy.
Suggestions, gentle  reader, suggestions?