6 days Ago By Shawna Forester Smith
I believe we’re all entitled to the care we need to not only remain alive but to live the best life possible. Read this article for free: Already have an account? To continue reading, please subscribe: * I believe we’re all entitled to the care we need to not only remain alive but to live the best life possible. Read unlimited articles for free today: Already have an account? Opinion I believe we’re all entitled to the care we need to not only remain alive but to live the best life possible.
I understand there are limited resources and funds available. However, I’m not talking about extravagances. I’m talking about basic care and preventive measures.
What I often feel, and even more acutely lately, is that money is driving most decisions when it comes to health care, not what’s best for patients and their care providers. In my 15 years of being sick, things have never felt so bad or utterly hopeless. The people controlling the health-care system’s purse strings are so far removed from what really goes on that they have no clue about the impact of their decisions.
It must be easy to make choices that affect people’s lives when you don’t have to face them or their families. The fallout of these decisions isn’t their problem, and that’s part of the problem. I finally developed pressure ulcers, and yes, they are on my tuchus.
It was only a matter of time. I asked an occupational therapist ages ago for a special mattress to prevent the ulcers from occurring. I was told, “you don’t get a pressure mattress until you have pressure ulcers.
” That’s the dumbest logic I have ever heard. Why wait, when you can prevent them from happening in the first place? The occupational therapist mumbled something about having “limited resources.” Treating pressure ulcers is difficult and expensive.
They’re painful and can result in life-threatening complications, such as bone and muscle infections and even sepsis. Preventing them is cheaper in the long run. It’s now been decided I need a pressure mattress, but there are none available and there are people on a wait-list ahead of me.
It could take several months. I pay more than $37,000 a year in per-diem fees — $101.10 a day, to be exact — for the “privilege” of “living” in chronic care.
My husband and I also pay taxes. I should get the basic things I need, when I need them. Instead, my friends and family are going to buy me one.
I’m both grateful and embarrassed. They can cost upwards of $3,000. What makes me furious is the fact this was completely preventable.
Baseline staffing levels are also an issue. Overtime for health-care aides is over budget for the year, and it’s still over four months until the end of the fiscal year. Instead of finding more money, they just aren’t filling shifts.
Last weekend, we were short a health-care aide on both days. This meant a number of things for residents. Some didn’t get their weekly baths and will have to wait another week.
Some were stuck in bed all weekend because there wasn’t help to get up, dressed and into their wheelchair. It took forever to get help or to have your call light answered. And feeding people took more than twice as long.
Enjoy your cold lunch, much? The aides are running for their entire shifts. They’re lucky if they get their breaks. They’re lucky if they get off shift on time.
They come early to start pulling meds because otherwise they will be late dispensing them. The combination of the pressure ulcers and a recent compression fracture (from coughing) leaves me in excruciating pain. I have to be turned and repositioned every two hours.
This has to be done by two aides, because I cannot do it myself. It also puts me at risk for more fractures. Knowing health-care aides are operating short-staffed is cold comfort for someone in my position.
The health-care system’s cheapness also applies to supplies and equipment. Again, the people buying things don’t understand the impact and importance of the decisions they make. They only seem to care about cost.
Take the IV pumps they rolled out province-wide last year. They are awful. The sensors are too sensitive, the alarms go off constantly when there isn’t anything wrong and there are issues with the tubing.
This happens to me almost every day and often several times a day. It often disrupts my dinner — my intravenous nutrition (TPN). We end up having to change my tubing multiple times during an infusion because of harmless ‘champagne’ bubbles that are impossible to get rid of.
It happens at night too and disrupts my sleep. It’s also a giant waste of nursing time. It’s been like this since April 2023 and I am so frustrated.
My nurses are too. Who picked this inferior pump and why? Was it trialled? We joke that it was bought from onling shopping site Temu to get free shipping when you spend $20. The health-care system is apparently working with the manufacturer to try to find a solution, but it’s been over 18 months.
You would think — and hope — they would have figured it out by now. I’m not holding my breath for a solution. They don’t realize the impact of other decisions they’ve made — such as switching to cheaper, inferior products, which means you end up using more.
They did that with one of my regular dressings. So now you’re not actually saving money. It’s stupidity.
But there doesn’t even seem to be logic or common sense at play most of the time. I understand being responsible for a budget — I have managed budgets. But it’s the humans affected by these decisions.
It’s people’s health, well-being and lives. Shadow a nurse for a day and see where your money is spent. Remember: it’s people, not widgets.
What I would love for my upcoming birthday is an IV pump that doesn’t beep constantly and require a full contingent of health-care aides to manage. I’d also love if we received the basics we are entitled to that healthy people take for granted. I’m about ready to stop paying my per diems, in protest.
We just want what healthy people want: to live the best life possible. It’s not particularly complicated, unless you choose to make it that way. I’m willing to share my experience and knowledge with any administrator who wants a patient’s perspective.
I also invite our premier and health minister to come to Deer Lodge Centre to meet me and discuss the current state of affairs in health care, even though I am very sick and exhausted. While writing this, I just discovered we are short a health-care aide again and they are not being replaced. So, I may not get turned every two hours.
I’m a writer at a loss for words. Shawna (Shoshana) Forester Smith is a 41-year-old chronically ill, disabled Ojibwe writer and health-care advocate who lives on a chronic-care unit at Deer Lodge Centre. shawna.
[email protected] Shawna (Shoshana) Forester Smith is a 41-year-old chronically ill, disabled Ojibwe writer and health-care advocate who lives on a chronic-care unit at Deer Lodge Centre.
Our newsroom depends on a growing audience of readers to power our journalism. If you are not a paid reader, please consider . Our newsroom depends on its audience of readers to power our journalism.
Thank you for your support. Shawna (Shoshana) Forester Smith is a 41-year-old chronically ill, disabled Ojibwe writer and health-care advocate who lives on a chronic-care unit at Deer Lodge Centre. Our newsroom depends on a growing audience of readers to power our journalism.
If you are not a paid reader, please consider . Our newsroom depends on its audience of readers to power our journalism. Thank you for your support.
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