Long-term care homes offer loving care

Despite lack of funding, staff are cheerful and warm to residents

With all the current horror stories about elderly abuse and neglect at nursing homes in Ontario, you’d think the entire long-term care system is a disaster. It’s not.

Despite years of underfunding, examples abound of long-term care homes that offer loving, supportive care to the most vulnerable older citizens among us.

In January, my husband entered a care facility in Waterloo after a stroke, blindness and increasing dementia made it impossible for him to remain safely at home.

During the course of his decline, I had direct contact with a number of care homes in Waterloo Region. I’ve also heard the stories of many friends and colleagues whose loved ones live in such homes.

Most sing the praises of staff at their facility. There are exceptions, places where care is minimal and the amenities are few. But in most places, the frail elderly are offered care that is kind, caring, professional and imaginative. And providing cheerful care isn’t always easy.

A few care homes, for example, offer special units for people whose dementia makes some of them paranoid and violent. Family members view the nurses and other support staff on these units as heroes.

“These people should be given medals,” said a chaplain at one care home. “There is not a worker who is not hit, kicked, shouted at, pushed or spat upon every single day.”

Staff in most long-term care homes do a remarkable job in stressful conditions. The entire system is underfunded — so much so that all major parties in the recent Ontario election called for substantial increases in funding. The Progressive Conservatives pledged to add 5,000 longterm care beds to the system. Good, as long as they also provide funding for training and workers to go with the additional beds.

For years, government grants have not kept pace with the health impacts of our rapidly aging population. People are living longer. As a result, they are suffering increasingly complex health challenges.

Years ago, an 80-year-old suffering a major stroke probably would have died. With recent medical advances, that person could live for years with a host of additional problems, such as dementia and Parkinson’s.

Thankfully, funding for care at home has increased in recent years — a blessing for many families. But there are two problems when the ill-at-home can no longer be cared for by their family. First, there’s a drastic shortage of available long-term care beds. The current waiting time in Waterloo Region is up to four years unless the person reaches a “crisis” point.

Second, when people finally do enter long-term care, most require far more complex care than they would have needed years ago.

“Our number of residents hasn’t increased over the past 10 years, but the complexity of their care needs has skyrocketed,” a senior administrator told me. “Yet we have basically the same staffing level and much the same funding as we had a decade ago.”

With a burgeoning elderly population, we need many more long-term care homes and workers. And we need more staff for the ones that exist.

Thank goodness for volunteers who help to partially offset the effects of underfunding. They do everything from helping to feed and exercise residents to running coffee shops, giving concerts and planting gardens to help a place feel more like home.

And kudos, too, to caring staff and administrators.

There are times I’ve been moved to tears by the tender care that I see staff give to those who need help with every aspect of living. I marvel at the workers’ patience, their inventiveness, their understanding of how to offer quality of life for someone for whom swallowing is a major accomplishment — or who cannot swallow at all. Or someone who wails all day every day without ceasing

I am amazed by the personalized professionalism of staff, offered with a warm and cheerful humanity.

Workers are fond of these frail folk. They know each person as a treasured individual. They delight in their happy moments, laugh at their eccentricities, worry about their health — and feel pain and loss when someone in their care dies.

The vast majority of caregivers are neither neglectful nor abusive. Support staff, nurses and administrators work hour by difficult hour to offer the best care they can, despite the enormous stress of chronic underfunding.

I am thankful they exist.