GREY MATTERS
New column for boomers and beyond
WANDA MORRIS is the vice-president of advocacy for CARP, a national, non-profit, non-partisan advocacy organization with 300,000 members and chapters across the country. CARP advocates for financial security, improved health care and freedom from ageism for Canadians as we age. Find out more at www.CARP.ca/about. Wanda is a CPA and holds a Master of Arts in Transforming Spirituality; she has three decades of experience in senior roles in both the corporate and not-for-profit sectors. During her tenure as vicepresident of advocacy, CARP has seen government commitments to increase CPP coverage and funding for caregivers and homecare, to decrease energy prices and to roll back increases to pharmaceutical co-payments for seniors. In this column, Wanda will address issues of importance to baby boomers and seniors. If you have a question, please send it to askwanda@carp.ca
It was more than three decades ago, but I still remember the elegant surroundings I saw when I stepped out of the car: the freshly clipped lawn, the stone facade, the oak door. It was the first day of an audit at a long-term care facility. I had come equipped with
my briefcase, working papers and calculator. But nothing prepared me for what I’d find inside.
When I opened the door, I was greeted by the smell of bleach, of institutional food, of despair.
To reach the accountant’s office, I walked past people sitting in wheelchairs who reached out, trying to catch my attention. I walked past people in rooms, calling out from their beds. And I walked past a nursing station where staff talked and laughed, seemingly oblivious to the misery around them.
Every day, I walked down that hall; every night, I went home and wept. It may be 30 years later, but the problems remain.
In February of this year, James Acker, a high-functioning dementia patient, was cruelly beaten by another resident in his long-term-care facility,
St. Joseph’s Villa in Dundas, Ont. His injuries were so severe he died from them.
Last year, Elizabeth Wettlaufer, a nurse from Woodstock, Ont., was charged with the murder of eight seniors. She was alleged to have ended the lives of care home residents with staff and family being none the wiser.
While these are extreme incidents, mistreatment of patients in care homes is anything but rare. Across the country, staff put patients in diapers because toileting requires too much time; nurses ‘forget’ to give pain medication to residents that complain; and fragile seniors are co-housed with individuals who are aggressive or even violent.
The result is hardly surprising: Every year, more than 1,000 patients in long-term care facilities are abused, physically harmed by aggression or neglect.
There are a number of factors contributing to this abuse, and sadly, they appear to be getting worse rather than better. Canada’s population is aging — there are now more Canadians 65 years and over than those under the age of 15.
Dementia is highly correlated with age, so dementia sufferers are also on the rise — with no prospects for relief in sight. Despite billions invested in research, Alzheimer’s — the most common form of dementia — remains a disease with no known cause and for which there is no cure. Provincial investments in long-term care infrastructure and staffing have not kept pace with increased needs, and the needs of long-term care residents have become increasingly complex. The Ontario Long-Term-Care Association (OLTCA) estimates that 90 per cent of long-term care residents have some type of cognitive impairment, with more than two-thirds of those being dementia-related. The OLTCA statistics reveal a 12 per cent increase in dementia patients in care in six years.
There is no straightforward solution.
Problems in care homes arise from causes that can be geographically distinct. Increased dementia often results in greatly increased demands but staffing levels haven’t been adjusted accordingly; outdated facility designs agitate rather than calm residents; long waiting lists for beds leave governments unwilling to close down problematic facilities; not all staff have proper training, particularly when it comes to supporting residents with dementia; and some private homes cut corners to profit at residents’ expense.
Still, if we decide as a society that these conditions are unacceptable, we could change them. At the moment, it appears we’re prepared to live with the warehousing of our elderly and infirm.
Show you care. Go to carp.ca/FixLongTermCare to sign CARP’s petition for increased funding and improved oversight of long-term care homes.