Senior’s home care cut drastically
Eve Eagar-Anderson, 97, is blind and prone to falls — but getting less care
Eve Eagar-Anderson turns 97 next month, is legally blind and prefers to have meals brought to her apartment at the Rockcliffe Retirement Residence because she’s conscious of her struggles to get to food on her plate.
She doesn’t have good balance, and has not been steady on her feet for some time. That and her blindness make her susceptible to falls. She uses a four-wheel walker with its brake on to get around her apartment.
Eagar-Anderson fell in her unit on Jan. 20 and suffered a hip fracture. Back in late 2012, she had also fallen, that time at the entrance of the building and broken her left shoulder. She spent time in hospital on both occasions, and late last winter was hospitalized because her legs were very weak. After her latest misadventure, she spent two weeks in hospital and then was transferred to Bruyère Continuing Care, where she underwent rehabilitation for a month.
Eagar-Anderson, a payroll clerk in the British army during the Second World War, says she is still blessed with a sharp mind and would like to live independently as long as possible. To do so, she depends on help from personal support workers who have been supplied by the Champlain Community Care Access Centre since breaking her shoulder in 2012. Without that support, she says, she might as well move into a nursing home.
So imagine her dismay when she found out that visits from her PSWs were going to be reduced to two 45-minute sessions per week from the two 30-minute sessions she had been receiving daily. When her daughter, Betty Alain, protested, she was told her mother’s “team” at the Bruyère, including a physiotherapist and occupational therapist, were so satisfied with her mother’s progress that they felt she no longer needed the help she was getting: Things like having her bed made up, her water jug and humidifier filled, dishes washed and her floor cleared of items .
The CCAC, which describes itself as one of the largest health service providers in eastern Ontario, has a care co-ordinator at the Bruyère. It carried out an independent assessment based on Bruyère’s report before Eagar-Anderson’s release and agreed. Eagar-Anderson is now waiting to get a second CCAC assessment at home.
Alain says it was suggested that if her mother really felt she needed that much personal support, she purchase it privately through the Rockcliffe, or even move to a cheaper retirement facility to make it more affordable. Eagar-Anderson moved into the retirement home when she turned 90 and likes it there. Alain says for her mother to have to go elsewhere would create a lot of angst. Eagar-Anderson also doesn’t like the idea of “shelling out money until it’s gone.”
The new CCAC plan for Eagar-Anderson originally called for only one 45-minute visit per week — in order to give her a shower. She was helped with showering every second visit under the old plan. Alain asked for her mother to receive a second visit per week so she could get another shower, and the CCAC did come around to agree to Alain’s pleas.
Alain says the help her mother received prior to her most recent fall went a long way. And now with it slashed by well over 75 per cent, she fears there is a higher risk of her mother having another fall — no matter how well Bruyère says the therapy went. Says Eagar-Anderson: “My blindness is my big problem.”
“I’ve paid my dues,” says Eagar-Anderson, who sees the reduction in her personal support as an ominous sign.
“I think it’s a disgrace. ... I’m at the end of my life, but you’re not, and I don’t know what you’re going to do when you get old, and you’re told the government is cutting back.”
Kim Peterson, the CCAC’s vice-president of clinical care, could not speak specifically about Eagar-Anderson’s case, but stressed that adjustments on personal support services are made based on assessments. Though she says there is a waiting list for services, she says spending to provide home care continues to rise. The 2014-15 forecast is $79.9 million compared to $68.4 million spent in 2011-12. The program is universal and is not dependent on a client’s income.
“People do get better,” says Peterson. “This has been the whole point of the Bruyère program. It’s targeted at that seniors’ population and helping them be more independent. That’s the goal.”