I can’t believe we’re doing this again. Or perhaps more accurately, that we’re doing it still.
At the outbreak of the Covid pandemic, sickening horror stories emerged about how cruelly residents of some continuing care and long-term care facilities were being treated. When Canadian Armed Forces personnel were called in to rescue residents in the worst of the facilities, they issued a damning and sobering report on the neglect and abuse the residents had been subject to.
Canadians were outraged. At least for a while.
The worst reports came from Quebec, Ontario, and BC. But shameful neglect is happening in Alberta.
Today, in Alberta, someone’s Dad will get his medication three or four hours late because the few staff on shift can’t keep up. It will affect his health. Someone’s Grandma will have to forego a bath or shower again, after not having bathed in several days.
Someone’s Mom will have to spend another entire day in bed because there aren’t enough workers on shift to get her up and dressed.
Someone’s beloved Grandpa will have to wet the bed and wait to be cleaned up because there aren’t enough people on shift to help him to the bathroom.
Imagine being told that the care you and your family are paying for isn’t available when you need it. Yes, you. All of us. Imagine lying there, wetting the bed, and realizing this is your life now.
The insult. The indignity.
The cruelty.
Lest you imagine the care sector as exclusively run by villainous profiteering scoundrels, I can promise you that’s not the case. In a system that includes public care, private facilities run by nonprofits, and private for-profit operations, there are outstanding facilities all around. Almost all of them meet the standards of care, and a great many exceed them.
But there are standards, and then there are standards. There are government standards and industry standards; there are the standards each organization sets for itself. These are invariably noble.
But if noncompliance is acceptable—and it seems it is—then there are no standards at all.
These terms I’ve used, words like sector, industry, standards, compliance, are part of the problem. These words describe care as a management function or as a deliverable in a transaction. But real care isn’t all about public and private policies or management techniques.
Real care includes empathy, compassion, and love. These are easy to observe, but hard to measure—and that’s what makes them so hard for some managers to understand.
Real care is delivered every day by teams of healthcare workers: professionals and support staff.
Staff in those few substandard facilities endure the personal heartache of not being able to take proper care of the residents. It affects them. They take it home with them.
Meanwhile, some beautiful old people are suffering through their days in embarrassment, frustration, discomfort, and pain.
Again: this is absolutely not typical of public or private care facilities in Alberta.
But again: it is happening.
Regulations and standards need to be stringent and absolute. Inspection and enforcement need to be vigorous. Penalties for failure need to be severe. We can’t shrug off the few bad apples when each of them is responsible for the shabby care of a dozen (or more) real people.
“Red tape,” you say? Bring it on.
Neglect is abuse. And the abuse of vulnerable old people is indecent and inexcusable.
