Sooner or later I was going to get around to this - why I hate IHA. My experience with the system that obviously doesn't work dates back to early 2009. My elderly mother, who was living in the family home in Kelowna, BC suffered her second stroke. While going through re-hab at KGH it was slowly become clear that her recovery had reached its final plateau. I don't blame her for being stubborn at the time (she was 84) as she managed to pull off a complete recovery from her first stroke almost two years before.
This stroke left her in a wheelchair and family (myself and my younger brother) had a group meeting in an office at the KGH Re-Hab Unit to basically tell Mom she was not going home. The IHA Staff in the Re-Hab Unit were great. I couldn't find anything bad to say about any of them if I tried. We (my brother and I) found Mom a little more receptive to the changes in her life than we expected, which made some of the transition much easier than we anticipated.
Where I start to find fault with IHA is at about this point. There's something called the 'First Available Bed' protocol that comes into play here. While Mom was more or less instructed to tour local care facilities to basically pick her new home, we found out she would likely end up on a waiting list at her chosen spot (she found one she liked quicker than we thought), and while on that waiting list IHA would shuffle her off to a location somewhere around Kelowna (or the region) when the first available bed is identified and that's where she would live until a space opened up at her chosen location.
The first available bed ended up in a location in Rutland which had a lot of internal problems with striking staff and all sorts of negative publicity. We were assured that the 'First Available Bed' is a 'temporary' bed, but it could be a while as we were essentially waiting for a resident at Mom's chosen location to die to make room.
There were other problems with the Rutland location. It was kilometres away from any of Mom's elderly friends. It wasn't close to a bus stop, so any of her friends who wanted to visit her had a difficult time getting to her 'temporary' home. Rutland was far from anything related to our family. They could have shipped her across the country and it would have been much the same. This was not good for Mom's morale in any way whatsoever.
To top it off, the Rutland facility was for seniors with various forms of dementia - which put Mom in a category all her own, because she did not have dementia. The only stimulating conversation/interaction she was getting was from Staff and not from any of the residents. Trust me, I could hear it in her voice when she told me on the phone that she won all the games of Bingo...again. There was no challenge.
So my brother and I tried to get the facility management and staff to engage Mom somehow. They did come up with some ideas, but nothing seemed to last too long. Mom needed interaction from her friends. I should note at this point that both my brother and I live somewhere other than Kelowna. At best, I'm a 2.5 hour drive away, my brother lives in Ontario. It was difficult for us to 'always be there' to help the facility operators with the task of what I would consider their job to do.
This is a long, long story and I will add to it over the next few days and maybe you'll get an idea of why I'm doing what I'm doing with this website. Thanks to IHA's continued gutting of services in my current hometown hospital, and the drive and focus of many local residents who are standing up and saying they have had enough, it has inspired me to share my personal beef with the system that clearly is not working.
Stay tuned for more...
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George this Policy has been going on for at least the 5 years i've been working in the industry as a care aide. There have been "First Available Bed" placements of people, with dementia mind you, from Kerameous residents to Princeton, Oliver residents to keramous and Kerameous to Penticton all the time. The primary care givers (elderly Seniors themselves) often with no car or other transportation are stuck depending on friends and neighbors to take them to see their family members. Very often wives and husbands of fifty or sixty years separated for undetermined amounts of time. As for the staffing issues IhA has determined to the minut how many staff are available per resident per hour of the day. for example in one facility i worked in we had 14 high escape risk residents and 3 staff only from 7 am to nine pm then 1 yes i said one staff for 14 residents from 9 pm to 7 am. the nurse on duty was "in the Building" yet has to come through 3 locked doors to be of any assistance if she isn't busy with her other 25 residents in the other part of the building she works in. where i currently work we have 40 residents 4 care aides working with the residents, one bath person to help get people up then do 5 to 6 baths in 8 hours and one activity care aide from 7am til 3pm. from 3pm till 8pm there is 5 care aides on the floor helping residents. After 8pm there is three care aides untill 11 pm. 11 pm till 7 am for 40 residents we have one care aide. It must be said that there is always one LPN 24/7 in this facility. for an emergency we ship the residents to Penticton. As a care aide we get people in and out of bed, complete and total care from toiletting, brushing teeth, feeding, daily activities, bathing,turning people in bed when they can't roll over, anything and EVERYTHING you do for yourself throughout the day we do for the resident.Please keep in mind not all the residents come from the best areas or family situations. We do it because we love it and them, even though we get used abused punched and yelled at by the residents who don't understand what is happening to them. When we get hurt Iha does very little to help us workers out and often force us back to work injured. I've said it before IHA is a business and all they care about is their bottom line and making money. I appologize for going off topic for this rant but i wanted to give a little inside look at what happens. hopefully i have not confused people. IHA and the Government needs to do something and fast. Paulette
ReplyDeletePaulette...Thanks for sharing this. As I stated before, I would never fault the people. The system they are forced to work within is the main problem. I appreciate your input here so very much! - George
ReplyDeleteThanks George I didn't mean to come across as ranting at you this wasn't personal in any way. I'm actually very frustrated at the way people and families are treated by the system. I only wanted to give some insight into life inside the system from my small area Of Iha.
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