Thoughts On Change

An interesting piece of news broke on the “Open Line Show” last week, when a medical worker indicated that the single biggest issue in bed shortages at hospitals was due to seniors occupying these beds, while waiting and very often for months for beds in nursing or long term care homes. I mused at that story, simply because, that truth was obvious to me because my own family has been trying for over a year to get a loved one placed.

I suppose the scope of this issue isn’t hardly considered by the public, and never spoken about or reported by the Health Authorities. But the reality is, if our hospitals are ultimately being used for transient and seniors home care, then a dangerous president is being set here.

There are hundreds if not thousands of Newfoundlanders and Labradoreans across the province in need of some kind of long term care, but equally true there are even more people out there waiting for beds in hospitals.

Our hospitals have become primary care institutions for long term care, and walk in clinics for moderate ill patients. Let’s be realistic, appendectomy, tonsillectomy, gall bladder removal, mastectomy and many other procedures that would once land a patient in hospital for up too two weeks, are now being done in day surgery, the breeding ground for super bug.

I suppose it all comes around to space, economics and human resource especially in the case of seniors care, or at least excuses by government. This province supports foster homes for transient children. Would it not be possible to deliver the same kind of program to seniors? What have always seemed double standard to me is while the province will deny $600.00 worth of home care to an elderly couple such as the Connors in a previous post, they will pay a minimum $6000.00 a month to house them in a seniors home, and more than $900.00 a day to keep them in hospital.

We need to break down the barriers, make real change and save real money doing it! How? Let’s start by paying family to take care of their loved ones.


Brudder