OLD TV HAS TO GO
Hotel-Dieu: Pay up
On a ventilator and in a hospital bed for the last two years, Dorie Hovsepian spends 12 to 14 hours a day with her visiting husband Peter watching a TV hooked up with rabbit ears.
It’s her only enjoyment, according to her daughter Karen Parr, whose 75-year-old mother suffers from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.
But earlier this week, Hovsepian was in tears, asking to be taken home to die when she received a letter from Hotel-Dieu Grace Healthcare, Parr said. It said the TV was being removed from her room and left at the security desk for Peter Hovsepian to pick up and bring home. If he brought it back into his wife’s room, “we will take steps to escalate the issue which may include a notice of trespass to you, whereby you will not be permitted on site until you can comply with the hospital’s request.”
The letter arrived Monday at Dorie Hovsepian’s room in the Emara Centre for Healthy Aging and Mobility (formerly called Malden Park) after an earlier meeting with the couple on Nov. 17, when they were asked to remove the TV by Nov. 24.
“It was explained to you that television rental services are available on site from the Hospitality Network,” says the letter, referring to the firm that provides rental TV service to more than 200 Canadian hospitals, with a portion of the revenue going back to the hospitals. “Hotel-Dieu Grace Healthcare has contracted with this provider to ensure services are available to all patients,” the letter says.
The fee for the TV service, according to Peter Hovsepian, 73, and his daughter, is $93 a month, more than the couple can afford and much more than basic cable, which costs $25. The couple lives on modest pensions and has been happy using rabbit ears to get free TV, the daughter said.
“Sick people, old people in homes like Malden Park, are essentially being held hostage to extortionate cable fees. It’s just gross,” said Parr, who lives in Ottawa and has been trying to find a way for her mother to keep the TV. Her father said that for two years, they watched TV with rabbit ears with no problems. She can speak a few words by activating a valve in her ventilator.
When Dorie Hovsepian first moved in, there was a TV already there (belonging to Hospitality Network) and they were told they could use it with rabbit ears, Peter Hovsepian said. But then a few weeks ago, a technician turned up to replace the remote controls on the TVs in the area, saw that the Hovsepians were using the TV for free and the couple was quickly told they couldn’t use it without paying.
“I said, OK, if that’s the case I’ll go buy my own TV,” said Peter Hovsepian. He said when he brought it in he was confronted by a hospital manager.
“She said if you want to use the TV, you’ve got to use the hospital TV and pay for it.”
Any requests for patients to bring in their own TVs are “always denied,” said hospital spokesman Bill Marra, citing a contract with Hospitality Network that says no other television sets will be allowed. Small appliances are also not allowed, he added.
“To allow televisions would be a violation of the contract with Hospitality Network and would also create some concern around infectious disease protocols and issues of that nature,” Marra said. Other issues include electrical and safety standards.
When informed of the Hovsepians’ situation, Hospitality Network spokesman Paul Hemburrow said his company could look into providing some sort of discount for compassionate reasons.
“That’s something we could look into, but we wouldn’t necessarily change the policy to allow people to put rabbit ears or circumvent the network we put in place,” he said.
Marra also said patients who don’t want to pay for TV service can use the hospital’s free Wi-Fi, to download shows from the internet. But Parr said that’s not an option for her mother. What she wants is what she’s always had — old-fashioned TV. And because of her health, there’s nowhere else for her to go, said the daughter.
“It’s pretty heavy-handed,” she said of the letter. “They’re threatening a 73-year-old with trespassing. Give me a break.”