Photo: Author’s Gramma with her grandchildren. The blonde kid is the future Armchair Mayor. (Image Credit: Mel Rothenburger)

By Mel Rothenburger

ARMCHAIR MAYOR

ROTHENBURGER: Imagine how different it would be if we’d taken care of our seniors

May 30, 2020 | 6:53 AM

THE FIRST LONG-TERM CARE home I ever visited left an indelible impression.

I was a kid, and my grandmother Justina Hohm had been placed there when Alzheimer’s made it impossible for her to live on her own. I visited her along with my parents and brother and I remember her being the same sweet, gentle woman I had always known except for one thing: she didn’t know who we were.

Even my father, who had done so much to defend her and look after her for so many years, was a stranger in her eyes. “And you are?” she would ask every once in a while. It was heart-breaking. And yet, it was a good facility, clean, cheerful, well-run. It’s my recollection that it was a government-run building, pre-privatization. Much has changed in the field since then and, today, long-term care facilities (or, nursing homes or extended care, if you prefer) are much under scrutiny. A report on five Ontario long-term care homes has painted a shocking picture of neglect and abuse of their elderly residents.

Cockroaches, feces-contaminated rooms, force feeding — these are the things pointed out in the report by the Canadian military on how we treat our seniors in their last years.

Every one of us stands a pretty good chance of landing in one of those places as our clock ticks down towards our final days. Most of us want to live as long as possible, and that involves growing old. And when we get old enough, or infirm enough, we have to be moved into a facility with medical care.

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I have a long-standing joke with my family: when the time comes, just roll my wheelchair up to the edge of the river and keep on pushing. The thought of entering long-term care frightens me.

I’ve seen many a nursing home since those visits with my grandmother and, let’s face it, they are depressing places for the most part. Some are much better than others — better staffed, better cleaned, better equipped, better run.

Usually, and naturally, the residents are at varying stages and conditions. Some are alert and content while others comprehend little. For the latter, activity and stimulation are limited, consisting largely of being wheeled into a common room and parked in a corner to stare and to drool.

That is a harsh way of putting it but it’s true. It’s the way some of us will spend our “golden years.” Caring for such people takes a special gift, stamina and incredible patience.

It’s important to make a distinction between independent- or assisted-living facilities and long-term care or “complex” care, though some facilities include more than one level. For those who can afford it, independent living is available in top-notch seniors’ complexes with gyms, libraries, movie rooms, entertainment, housekeeping, excellent meal plans and 24-hour nursing care as needed.

Because of the folks close to me who have lived in them, I can attest that the food, staffing levels and maintenance at these facilities are wonderful. It’s the places we go for the last few months or couple of years of our lives, when we need constant care, where the system seems to break down.

There’s an irony in this — at the time when we need the most care, we sometimes are all but abandoned. If the seniors in long-term care had been properly protected, more than three-quarters of the deaths from COVID-19 in this country could have been avoided. That’s

staggering. Imagine how different this pandemic might have been if we’d targeted seniors’ care instead of blindly shutting down the economy.

Not only were many of our seniors not protected but, in fact, were put at increased risk due to systemic failures. Among the most outrageous findings in the Ontario report are incidents in which residents were treated without compassion, as if they were worthy only of verbal humiliation, their pain and discomfort ignored.

The report says in some cases residents were being sedated with narcotics “when they are likely just sad or depressed in a context where there isn’t the staffing to support the level of care and companionship they need.”

In another facility, says the report, there was “forceful feeding observed by staff causing audible choking/ aspiration” and residents weren’t bathed for several weeks.

I’ll pause here to mention that my last living uncle was placed in a long-term care facility after he recovered from a medical episode his doctors didn’t expect him to survive. In his mid-90s, he was still cognitively healthy and physically able to get around on his own. His biggest complaint about the new residence was that he was only allowed to bathe once a week. That’s apparently the standard. Imagine going several weeks without a bath as per the Ontario report.

Frequently mentioned in that report are staffing shortages and “caregiver burnout,” resulting in a lack of attention to the dignity of patients. It’s tough to read.

Politicians have reacted with anger, calling the report heart-breaking, gut wrenching, horrific, deeply disturbing and shocking, and they vow to fix the system. But governments have known about the problem for years, and in some cases have added to it with budget cuts. The industry itself has been begging for improvements to the system.

Though it’s an Ontario report, we shouldn’t feel overly confident about the state of long-term care closer to home. In B.C. we’ve had some bad situations and lost our share of seniors to the pandemic.

I’m not convinced a government takeover of these facilities from the private sector is the answer but dramatically improved government oversight under federally mandated standards is.

These are human beings. I think about my Gramma and am grateful she received the care she needed. She came to Canada from her native Ukraine at the age of 13, lived in a dirt-floor house, struggled through the loss of her family’s farm, survived physical abuse from the man she married after my grandfather died in a farming accident, and raised seven children. She was a person, a Canadian, not an inconvenience. The seniors of today are no different.

We should all be able to expect compassionate, competent care when we approach the end of our journey.

Mel Rothenburger is a former mayor of Kamloops and a retired newspaper editor. He is a regular contributor to CFJC Today, publishes the ArmchairMayor.ca opinion website, and is a director on the Thompson-Nicola Regional District board. He can be reached at mrothenburger@armchairmayor.ca.

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Editor’s Note: This opinion piece reflects the views of its author, and does not necessarily represent the views of CFJC Today or the Jim Pattison Broadcast Group.