The News has been full of HealthCare horrors.
The Media is focused on disrespect or perceived disrespect to Seniors.
First up was the glaring attention on a longtime married couple in the interior of the Province who were separated when the wife required Extended Care and the husband was intermediate. The wife was shipped off to a new facility in a new city an hour or so away and died within a short time. Away from her husband.
Nanaimo Regional Hospital was next up and has stayed up at bat for over a month as families come forward with more and more stories about inattention in the ER ward. It is not a new thing nor is it something easily band-aided but with the Media staring and taking notes it is an easy target. This week it was an elderly man dying on a gerney in the hallway with not even a blanket and now, today, an elderly Volunteer at the Hospital gift shop beaten to death by a raging patient. It all comes down to the same thing: not enough of any type of staff and droves of critics.
We pride ourselves on being a civil and gunfree society but noone told the bad guys. We need better security in Hospitals. We need more positions like the old-time Clerks who can hand out things like blankets and walk around giving indications of how things are going. Obviously critical care has to come first but equally obviously something is wrong when an elderly man who was IN CARE is sent to hospital to die in a hall. I think the family is asking the wrong questions. Why could he not die in the dignity of his own room in the place he resided?
I can tell you why but you won't like it. I don't like it either.
There are private care Facilities with beautiful rooms and lovely names where the client pays a big rent and must take dinner daily in the gracious and lovely dining room with others. The cost is generally $1000 a month for this dinner and housekeeping. Security locks at the front and back doors off the spacious lobbies are welcoming features for families who fly in to see all is well. There is a reception area there and an office manned by a $12 dollar an hour person. It's all very nice. If you are renting it is around $1700 and up and if you are buying it is close to $200,000 IF you can find one. Most places prefer renters. So your rent and your $1000 a month and you are in business.
If you require assistance you press their lifeline which is in each room. Do they come and help you? No. They come and wait with you for the ambulance they have called.
Some of these places take extended care as well and charge for every single event they are involved with. If a Care-aid hands you your pills it costs you $15 each time. If a Nurse beit LPN or RN hands you those same pills it is $25. A charge for walking you down the hall, a charge for everything other than a cheery hello. But if you require critical care well 9-1-1 and off you go to the hallways of the hospital.
I have no solution to offer. Perhaps some of those massive dollars spent in Human Resources and studies as to where to cut staffing could actually be used to staff. I know it is tough to be a CEO. Hundreds of thousands of dollars a year worth of tough.
Will anyone ever get in public office who is able to turn things around without that cash giveaway for inquiries that everyone already knows the answer to?
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