Coalition Supports Social Workers
Students Post Card Campaign
The Coalition for Seniors has endorsed
the Social Workers of St Thomas University post card campaign calling for
Premier Alward to implement the promises made to seniors during the election
2010 campaign.
Cecile Cassista, executive director
says the students will be holding a Social Action Fair on Thursday, March 21,
2013, at the St Thomas University with a view of getting their message out and
getting signatures in support of their campaign.
The campaign is calling for the
premier to deliver on his promises made to seniors during the election 2010.
Premier Alward: Keep Your Promises!Seniors in New Brunswick Deserve Better!
·Help Seniors live
at home longer
·Provide better
protection and services to seniors by expanding the mandate of the provincial
Ombudsman to advocate for seniors
We
are Social Work students who are gravely concerned about New Brunswick’s
long-term care system. We want our work with seniors to reflect our values of
respect and dignity.
In
his 2010 campaign platform, Premier Alward acknowledged seniors’ right to live
with respect and dignity. Alward promised that he would help seniors to live in
their homes longer, protect pensions, and improve access to wellness services,
among other promises.
As
yet, Premier Alward has not followed through on his 2010 campaign promises to:
-expand
the mandate of the provincial Ombudsman to include nursing homes, special care
homes and home care services
-establish
a 1-800-SENIORS, toll-free hotline for people over the age of 65 looking for
government information and services
-establish
a special wellness clinics for seniors
-include
a review of the value of work performed by home care workers (mostly women)
which sometimes amounts to less than minimum wage
According
to the 2006 Census, by the year 2026, approximately 25.7 % of New Brunswick
residents will be over 65. We need to make changes to our long-term care system
now.
Premier
Alward must collaborate meaningfully with advocacy groups, like the Coalition
for Seniors and Nursing Home Residents’ Rights, who put the needs of seniors
first. If Premier Alward’s word is his contract, then it’s time to keep his
word.
Premier
Alward needs to be held accountable. He must work with New Brunswick residents
to create a long-term care system that offers seniors dignity and respect.
Karolyn
Martin, Beth Anne Dolan, Julia Breneol & Robyn Lippett
Larry Hughes is trying to help make sure a senior will have a place to go when she gets out of the hospital. RON WARD/TIMES & TRANSCRIPT
Social Issues
Coalition upset over senior’s eviction
by cole hobson
Times & TRANSCRIPT STAFF
Cecile Cassista, executive director of the Coalition for Seniors and Nursing Home Residents' Rights,
An advocate for seniors says it
is “absolutely appalling” that a local woman was served an eviction
notice from a special care home due to behaviour issues, after only two
months.
Cecile Cassista, the executive director
of the Coalition for Seniors and Nursing Home Residents’ Rights, said
she was recently approached by someone whose 85-year-old relative was
evicted from Sunset Village Special Care Home in Moncton due to
aggressive behaviour.
“We’re talking about elderly people that
have built this country, helped build this province and it’s treating
them with disrespect,” she said. “(Special care homes) applied for a
license, they are approved through the government and they shouldn’t be
able to cherry pick who they keep in their facility.
“It takes about a year for people to
adjust when they live in these conditions. And unfortunately when she
was eventually told that she would be affected, she was very upset about
it.”
Larry Hughes is the man who approached
Cassista seeking help. The woman who was in the special care home is his
wife’s aunt by marriage and they have assumed responsibility for the
woman through power of attorney. She moved into the special care home in
November 2012 and was served an eviction notice on Jan. 8.
Hughes stressed that he doesn’t believe
the special care home is at fault for the eviction, as the report given
of the incidents included the woman pushing, shoving and having verbal
outbursts. However, he wants to see a better system put in place to deal
with situations like these, with more work being done to ensure seniors
are placed in the right types of homes, rather than having them soon
after put out in the cold with nowhere to go when the living arrangement
doesn’t work.
“Of course a special care home is not a
place for someone who may be more than they can handle or are expected
to handle. Fair is fair. But in the mean time you are still dealing with
a person, so you can’t in my mind keep shipping them back and forth
between where they are and somewhere else and the somewhere else is
totally unknown,” he said. “You are discussing things with a senior who
doesn’t remember the occurrences and the hospital says ‘She’s OK, take
her back,’ they say ‘we’re not sure we want to.’ You go around and
around and around. The merry go round is not so merry and at some point
it’s got to stop and reach a decision. It may not be the happiest for
all parties, but at least a decision.”
Hughes said the senior ended up at the
special care home after having some falls and making the decision
herself that she couldn’t safely live at home anymore. After being
evicted from the special care home she was put into the hospital and in
the meantime she has developed some back pain and an infection. She is
currently under examination in the hospital and awaiting a more
permanent home, while also being assessed to determine if she requires
more stringent care than what is provided by a special care home.
“Fortunately in a sad way to comment,
she’s back in the hospital and things may get turned around. But in the
meantime it still leaves a lot of soul searching, questions, pieces of
the puzzle that need to be put together. But there will be more folks
like that,” Hughes said. “Being a baby boomer myself, there’s lots of us
coming down the track here. It’s going to be interesting to address
those issues.”
An employee at the Sunset Village
Special Care Home refused to comment when reached Monday, suggesting any
comments to media would come from the government.
Jean-François Pelletier, a
communications officer with the Department of Social Development, noted
they aren’t able to discuss any specific case due to privacy
legislation. However, he did provide some specifics about how issues are
dealt with at special care homes when they arise.
“Special care home administrators will
try to work with the family in addressing an issue, usually over many
weeks and months, before taking action to evict someone,” he wrote in an
e-mailed statement. “In absence of collaboration from the resident and
their family, the special care home will provide a formal notice that
the placement has been terminated at a certain date (at least 15 days
notice), if the situation is not addressed in the meantime.”
Cassista doesn’t believe the due
diligence was done in this situation. She has issued a complaint to
Social Development Minister Madeleine Dubé regarding this situation and
she wants an investigation to be launched.
“We just believe that this is just very
disheartening for operators. The act got changed — at one time the
standard operating procedure said they could give you a notice within 15
days, that was it,” she said. “Now basically they have to involve a
family member and the person that is affected and the social worker. So
when talking with Mr. Hughes I asked him to get in touch with the social
worker — the social worker knew nothing about it.
“The only time operators can discharge
somebody is if there’s a safety threat to themselves or other
individuals in the facility.”
Pelletier added that in its election
platform, the Alward government “committed to expand the mandate of the
provincial Ombudsman to include nursing homes, special care homes and
home care services as part of a new Seniors’ Charter of Rights.” He said
that the work is currently underway and being led by the Department of
Healthy and Inclusive Communities.
Cassista said in the two Moncton-area
hospitals there are currently 115 seniors awaiting placement in other
residences and across the province there are 545. She hopes the
situation is more closely monitored in the future and she’s also hoping
medical staff are put in place at special care homes in order to better
meet the needs of residents.
“It sends a bad message to other seniors
when people get evicted,” she said. “It silences them and I shutter
when I hear another senior being evicted.”
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2 Comments
LINDA CLARK January 29, 2013 09:29:05AM
This lady's bed wouldn't even be cold, till they had someone else in
it, I imagine. All Nursing Home administrators should have to attend
meetings on proper procedure..I doubt if this lady is the only one that
this happened to.
As a Senior who might be in such a situration, I hope this gets
attention.. Special care means professional people with special
abilities. (not special equipment like chairs with attachs) so small
problems like this type does not seem difficult to address.
Sad that such lack of concern that it happens.
The number of people in New
Brunswick hospitals awaiting nursing home beds remains consistent,
fluctuating from month to month but not really showing any signs of
improvement.
The Department of Social Development
reports that about 800 New Brunswickers on average are waiting for a
nursing home bed. Currently, about 166 reside at home while the rest are
in hospitals or other health-care facilities.
In June, the department said that there
were 717 New Brunswickers waiting for placement in a nursing home, with
452 applicants waiting in hospital, and those numbers were nearly
identical to figures from a year earlier.
Social Development Minister Madeleine
Dubé said while government continues to work on improving seniors’ care,
there is much work to be done.
“Since 2010, (we’ve created) more than
200 new nursing home beds,” she said. “So, yes there is some positive
movement, but we know the population is aging, the demand is there, and
like I said this is still an issue.”
Dubé said her department has an annual
budget of $1.5 billion, with more than one-third — about $566 million —
dedicated to seniors care.
Last year, the Alward government
announced that it would add 354 new nursing home beds while
private-sector operators will build 704 additional special-care beds
over the next five years. It’s a plan the Opposition Liberals criticized
as providing short-term gain while driving up long-term costs.
The new nursing home beds will be added
at a cost of $329 million over five years. The special-care home beds
will be built and owned by private-sector operators and will not require
capital funding by the province.
The province also announced nursing home renovation plans and standardized senior health evaluations, Dubé said.
“Seniors care is not all about nursing homes,” she added. “There’s a lot of stuff being done for long-term care.”
She said the province needs to work toward offering better services to keep seniors living at home for as long as possible.
“Maybe the plan was, ‘OK, mom needs a
nursing home,’ but at the end of (an) assessment, maybe there’s other
ways to help mom and dad,” she said.
Dubé also pointed to the first ever
Summit On Healthy Aging and Care that took place in Fredericton in
November as evidence that there is a lot of work on the issue being done
in New Brunswick. That event brought more than 325 aging-care
stakeholders from across the province, giving health-care providers,
government decision-makers, administrators, advocates, researchers,
seniors and other partners an opportunity to get together in one room
and discuss the challenges on the horizon and plan collaborations and
shared strategies for the future.
“A lot has been done, but still we do have a lot of work to do,” Dubé admitted.
Horizon Health Network reported last
week that in its regional hospitals, 304 acute-care beds (25 per cent),
were occupied by people awaiting nursing home beds or home care.
Those patients who no longer require acute care services are considered alternate-level-of-care (ALC) patients.
In Horizon’s community hospitals, 59
acute-care beds, about 47 per cent, are taken up by ALC patients. Those
numbers are accurate as of Jan. 16.
“We empathize with patients and their
families as they wait in hospital for home care or alternate living
arrangements in the community,” said Horizon spokesperson Lisa Caissie.
“It is recognized that hospitals are not the best setting for these
patients and we continue to work with the Department of Health, the
Department of Social Development and Vitalité Health Network to find
solutions.
In Vitalité Health Network, 280 beds (29
per cent) were taken up by ALC patients as of December. More than 70
people were undergoing an evaluation process to determine what kind of
future care they would need while 204 were awaiting space in a nursing
or special-care home.
Asked if we will start to see improved numbers in the near future, Dubé said it’s difficult to predict.
“I don’t have a crystal ball, but we
know if we can have better services to support our seniors better at
home — which is what they want — this could prevent a lot of people from
ending up in nursing homes. So this is where we need to focus on.
There’s no doubt in my mind.”
Cécile Cassista, executive director of
the Coalition for Seniors and Nursing Homes Residents’ Rights, agreed
with Dubé that there is a lot of work left to do in the province.
“But it just seems like we’ve been
talking about this for a long time,” she said. “I can tell you that I’ve
been talking about this for nine years, and it seems that the wheels
just don’t turn fast enough.”
She would like to see anyone languishing
in a hospital bed to be put into special care homes and re-evaluated.
Keeping them in hospitals is more expensive, Cassista said, but it is
also detrimental to a patient’s health.
“The longer you languish in a hospital bed, the weaker you get,” she added.
This and other recommendations were made
to government late last year when the coalition gave a report to
government entitled Visions of Change: Aging in Place. Cassista said she
met with Dubé in December to go over the recommendations and she has
regular dialogue with the minister and her department.
The coalition would also like the
province to put private home health-care workers under the auspices of
the provincial extra-mural program, giving them better wages and
benefits, but also adding to their skill sets to improve senior care.
She suggested that a public auto insurance system could help fund these initiatives, similar to programs in Manitoba.
Now, because private agencies run home
health-care services, Cassista said workers are not paid enough and
there is a high rate of turnover.
In November, the New Brunswick Home
Support Association said they disagreed with Cassista’s position,
believing it to be a massive undertaking for government and taxpayers.
The NBHSA said it was working with stakeholders regarding improved
training, better wages, benefits and other career issues for workers.
Operating permit presented to owner after three-year wait
BY BRENT MAZEROLLE
TIMES & TRANSCRIPT STAFF
After three years of being told no, the owner/operator of a
Hillsborough seniors care facility has received a Christmas present
directly from Premier David Alward - an operating licence.
The
Times & Transcript first reported on Jerry Wilson's struggles to
provide housing for aging New Brunswickers back in August 2011. At the
time, Wilson had his brand new 28-bed facility just about completed, but
no licence was forthcoming after what at the time had been a
year-and-a-half of waiting.
Operating licence granted by province for seniors' home in Hillsborough
At the time, he felt he had nothing to lose by turning to the media to
shine a light on the bureaucracy that kept him from providing a service
there seems to be a great need for in greying New Brunswick.
Now, after another year-and-a-half has gone by, he has finally been
told he will get a licence to provide Level 2 care and open for
business, this just weeks after Premier David Alward, Social Development
Minister Madeleine Dubé, and local MLA Wayne Steeves dropped by Fundy
Royal Manor, the 24-unit home Wilson already operates in Hillsborough.
On Nov. 8, the premier, cabinet minister and MLA were in
Riverside-Albert to snip the ribbon at the new Forest Dale Nursing Home.
At that public event, Alward said all New Brunswickers had a stake in the way we care for the elderly.
'It's one of the big picture things that we need to come to a better
understanding of, not only as a government but as a whole society,' he
said.
'In the next 20 years, we're
going to see the number of seniors in our province double. We know how
the system is stressed in terms of being able to provide the level of
care. We know that there are seniors in hospitals that are waiting for
placement in a nursing home and that it is only going to become more
intense in coming years because of the sheer reality of how we are
aging. We need to have a dialogue as New Brunswickers talking about the
future and we need to have all the different partners at the table.'
Apparently being true to those words, Alward and the others dropped in
on Wilson for a private meeting on the way back to Moncton after the
Riverside-Albert event.
It had
taken Wilson three years to get the licence for his first facility, but
hearing that he was next in line for a licence for the second one, he
started construction.
He thinks that jumping the queue may have angered someone in officialdom.
'They were mad because I went ahead without a licence,' he said.
Licensing is not about the province deciding how many facilities it
wants to help pay for, as such facilities are entirely funded privately.
'I spent $1.5 million with zero government dollars,' Wilson said.
There is however, the question of need.
Staff at the regional offices of Social Development are responsible
for the as sessment of new applications to operate a special care home.
Applications received by the Adult Residential Co-ordinator are placed
on a waiting list in chronological order by date of receipt of the
application until a decision is made to approve the request.
The applications are processed on a first come, first served basis,
taking into account the vacancy rate in the region. Approvals for new
facilities or additional beds may only be considered when the vacancy
rate in a sub-region is less than 20 per cent. The vacancy rate for the
subregion, which includes Hillsborough, was 24.83 per cent when Wilson
first talked to the Times & Transcript.
Some might argue that's a figure not grossly above the 20 per cent
ceiling, but others would argue that the whole business of setting a
ceiling requires that it be adhered to.
However, Wilson said the vacancy rate figure was skewed at any rate,
because the vacancies among the 41 beds in the area included a seven-bed
facility that had ceased operation.
The Department of Social Development, however, didn't see those seven
beds as out of the equation, since a new operator could buy the
building and restart special care operations.
It's an unusual situation, given that the financial risks fall
entirely to the operators of such homes. On the other hand, if the
province allowed more facilities than the market could bear, you could
have the spectre of elderly residents put into the street if a home
fails financially.
Now, after being
told just before Christmas his licence has been approved - he still
does not have it in hand - Wilson says he has four people waiting to
move in and expects to have a half dozen within a month.
'The other one took only six months to fill and there hasn't been a vacancy since,' he said yesterday.
About half of the residents at that home are from the Moncton area and
Wilson suspects the private bedrooms and bathrooms the new Level 2
facility will offer will also draw people from Moncton.
'It's only 12 miles,' he said.
Right now, he's just looking forward to getting some return on his
investment, saying it's been rough paying the mortgage and property tax
and mowing the lawn of an empty building for well over a year.
'I'm 100 per cent happy now, but it was very stressful for a while.'
VIKTOR PIVOVAROV/TIMES & TRANSCRIPT
The 28-unit building owned by Jerry Wilson in Hillsborough is seen yesterday.
Healthy and happy seniors living and aging in respect and dignity.
Mission
Quality life for seniors living in residential facilities or at home.
Mandate/ Membership
The Coalition for Seniors and Nursing Home Residents' Rights is comprised of groups and individuals who come together to endorse and promote shared principles.
It is a non-partisan, non-sectarian umbrella organization whose purpose is to lobby in order to achieve and maintain affordable and accessible programs that enhance the quality of life for seniors and their families.
Established in February of 2004, the Coalition is a broadly-based, in-incorporated organization of groups and individuals.
It has over 50 member groups that include seniors, retirees, labor, women's groups, church groups, legions, researchers and organizations committed to social justice. In turn, these represent over 100,000 members.
Any group supporting the Coalition's mission is welcome to join. Our activities are led by an 18 member Board to which member organizations appoint or elect representatives. It strives for cooperative decision-making and consensus.
All member organizations receive regular mailings and invitations to attend meetings and participate in group activities.
The Coalition has no on going funding or staff, although it gratefully acknowledges the generous support of its member group.
It relies on volunteer labor, fund-raising and contributions from members and supporters.
January 29, 2013 09:29:05AM