Actually, your mom is right (and you can make her day by telling her I said so). Before you apply, you need clinical patient experience and clinical environment experience. You can gain both at a nursing home, hospice, hospital, rehabitlitation facility, or clinics of any type.
Instead of looking at such a job as "housekeeping duties," look at it as an opportunity to learn to interact with elderly people with a wide variety of interesting medical problems. You would be helping clients choose appropriate meals for their medical situation and likely would provide escort or transport, too. By interacting with the clients you help stimulate their mental faculties and may engage them in activities that improve/retain their fine motor and gross motor skills.
Face it, you aren't a trained worker and are likely to be assigned mundane duties in whichever venue you can find a job. Your purpose wherever you choose to go (besides making money or providing a community service) is to become comfortable engaging sick people and to learn about clinical environments.
