Woman keeps medical equipment
Care cut to 21 hours a week after terminally ill patient outlives plan’s 90-day limit
Doris Landry, the 84-year-old woman who outlived funding for the “Home First” program, will keep the medical equipment but will not receive the same amount of care from personal support workers.
On Sunday, the Star highlighted the story of Landry, a woman who was given a life expectancy of one or two months when she was discharged from hospital into the “Home First” programming offered by the Central CCAC and Central LHIN. Landry had been given medical equipment and eight hours of daily care from a personal support worker in her niece’s home.
Landry has continued to live beyond the 90-day program maximum. At-home care was cut to three hours a day, and last week there was uncertainty regarding whether the family would be allowed to keep the medical equipment: a bed, wheelchair, lift and oxygen supply. The CCAC had said the only equipment that might be removed was that not in use. The family said they use it all.
After a meeting with Central CCAC staff on Wednesday, including CEO Cathy Szabo, the family was assured the equipment could stay and that there might be subsidies to help buy it should there be an urgent need for it elsewhere in the system.
“The equipment will stay. That’s a good thing,” said Landry’s niece, Charlene Dunlevy. “I told them, ‘If I do end up not using the chair or the lift, of course I’ll call you up and get you to take it away.’ The hours they can’t do anything with.” Landry does not want to move into a longterm-care facility. She wants to be able to live out her final days in her niece’s home. Dunlevy said she asked the CCAC for help finding a retired personal support worker who might be willing to stay with her aunt for a nominal wage during the week, and they said they would see what they could do. Dunlevy had been filling in the gaps herself, but was just offered a job through a temp agency. She must let the agency know by Friday whether she can accept the job in Barrie. Now allocated just 21 hours of care a week from the CCAC, Landry needs care for 10 hours a day during the week, when her niece will be working. Three hours a day will be covered by the CCAC, so the family is looking for someone to fill in for a couple of hundred dollars during the week. Landry lives on a simple pension and the family cannot afford to pay a full wage. Care would involve helping Landry eat her breakfast and moving her so she doesn’t develop bed sores. Because of nerve damage, she is not able to move.
“I don’t have the money to give a lot. I wish I did,” said Dunlevy, who will have to turn down her job offer if she can’t find a solution.
In recent years, there has been a renewed focus on home care as a way to save taxpayers money and improve the health of Ontarians. Home care is generally the least expensive model, although high-needs patients who require more care cost the system more.
Health Minister Deb Matthews couldn’t comment on the case, but she’s heard similar stories “more often than I want to admit.”
She said that’s a “big part” of the reason she appointed Dr. Samir Sinha as the expert lead on the ministry’s senior care strategy.
“He’s going to be reporting back soon, and I know he’s very much looking at how do we provide the best possible care to people, elderly frail people, keeping them home as much as possible, out of hospital, out of longterm care, and as healthy as they can be.”