N.B. woman shocked after 88-year-old mother stuck in hospital supply room during bed crunch | 24CA News
A New Brunswick lady is demanding solutions after her 88-year-old mom, who’s in hospital awaiting a nursing residence mattress, was moved into a cramped room crammed with provides.
The well being authority, in the meantime, acknowledges that it should use what it calls “non-traditional care spaces” to take care of its hospitalized sufferers.
Karen Totten says she went to go to her mom Irene MacNeill on the Saint John Regional Hospital Thursday morning, solely to find someone else in her place.
Fearing the worst, Totten rushed to the nurses station. “I was like, ‘Oh my God, what happened to my mother? Where is she? Nobody called me,'” she stated.
“They said, ‘Oh, we had to move her because this person came up from emerge’ … and they took me over to where she was — and it was the friggin’ supply room.”
Totten was shocked, indignant and harm.
“When you’re deaf and you’re blind and you can’t walk, you need better care than that.”
Her mom had no bell if she wanted to name for assist and her mattress wasn’t plugged in, so she could not even sit as much as eat or drink, she stated.
“I mean, I know my mother’s old. I get it, and I know that her life is short. But if she would have died in that room, I don’t know what I would have done because they couldn’t have got in there to do anything to help her.”
The household’s story sheds mild on a report this week that the wait record for nursing houses in New Brunswick has hit a file excessive of 833, and that almost 500 of these individuals are in hospital beds.
Facebook put up elicits ‘heartbreaking,’ ‘horrible’ tales
Out of frustration, Totten posted about her expertise on social media, together with pictures that present her mom in her mattress, dwarfed by shelving models stacked with clutters of varied medical provides and flannel sheets.
She additionally posted a brief video of the scene.
Karen Totten was shocked to seek out her mom had been moved to a provide room in a Saint John hospital.
Totten stated her father, John MacNeill, 90, cried when he noticed his spouse of 65 years in a storage closet.
He cried all the best way residence. “Not out loud. I just looked over and he had tears running down his face,” she stated, combating again tears.
“I feel like I’m not taking care of her, you know? I feel like the whole system let them down.”
Based on the feedback her Facebook put up obtained, she’s not alone, she stated. She described the tales as “heartbreaking” and “horrible.”
Among them: “I went back and begged. I begged multiple times before being seen by a doctor. My [five]-year-old ended up needing emergency throat surgery. What if I had sat there like I was told?”
“My mother was given a blood transfusion in the hallway. She was also told to use a bedpan should she need to use the washroom while in the hallway,” learn one other.
Hospitals might use ‘non-traditional care areas’
Totten would not understand how lengthy her mom was within the storage room and says the nurses, who had been apologetic and appeared embarrassed, moved her to a daily room later that day.
But she says that is greater than simply her scenario. She has contacted Horizon’s affected person advocate, the officer of the seniors’ advocate and written to a number of authorities officers, together with Health Minister Bruce Fitch.
“There’s people in big-paying jobs and they need to fix this and they’re not. We have people in our government that are supposed to be helping and they’re not. Like, what are they doing?”
CBC requested an interview with Horizon Health Network, which oversees the Saint John hospital.
In an emailed assertion, Greg Doiron, vice-president of medical operations for the community, stated he couldn’t touch upon a particular case.
But “in situations where our hospitals are at or overcapacity, Horizon may utilize non-traditional care spaces in order to ensure all patients can be treated and safely cared for,” he stated.
“Although not ideal, this is a measure hospitals commonly use in instances where capacity is limited,” Doiron stated.
Patients or households with considerations over the care being supplied are inspired to contact Horizon’s affected person consultant companies, he added.
Earlier this week, throughout a media briefing on the triple risk of the flu, respiratory syncytial virus, known as RSV, and COVID-19, Doiron stated Horizon hospitals are all reporting occupancy charges above 95 per cent. Emergency departments are seeing a excessive quantity of sufferers presenting with extreme respiratory sickness signs, he stated.
Province understands the ‘difficulties and challenges’ with lengthy waits
The Department of Health didn’t reply to a request for remark about what particularly it is doing to get seniors like MacNeill, who’re in hospital awaiting a nursing residence mattress, into long-term care houses.
The variety of New Brunswick seniors ready to get right into a nursing residence has reached a file excessive of 833 as of November, in accordance with Cecile Cassista, govt director of the Coalition for Seniors and Nursing Home Residents’ Rights. Of these, 483 are in hospital.
That’s up from 782 and 455 in October, figures from the Department of Social Development present.
The Department of Social Development “understands the difficulties and challenges with long wait times and is dedicated to working with multiple partners to explore all solutions, like recruitment at the national and international levels,” stated spokesperson Rebecca Howland.
She famous the division added workers to hospital discharge groups earlier this 12 months. “They help find alternate solutions, when available, including interim placements and safe home support options for individuals waiting for placement in long-term care.”
Although Cassista advised there are beds out there in different services, similar to particular care houses, Howland stated lots of the individuals in hospital awaiting placements, known as different stage of care (ALC) sufferers, “require a high level of care, which can only be accessible in facilities such as nursing homes.”
Howland stated the wait record will not be static. About 150 new residents entry nursing residence beds in New Brunswick each month.
She acknowledged the want for nursing residence beds continues to develop, nonetheless, and stated the division is actively working to open extra.
‘Working on it’ would not minimize it
Totten says her mom has been in hospital since mid-September, when she fell and broke her arm and bruised her leg, from her hip to her ankle.
Prior to that, she was residing in an condominium together with her husband of their son’s residence, just some minutes away from Totten, with residence care assist.
MacNeill was medically discharged on Oct. 18 however has nowhere to go.
“Is this what my parents worked their whole lives for? Is this why we pay so much in health care taxes?” Totten asks the politicians in her letter.
These are human beings with actual lives and households.– Karen Totten, daughter of hospital affected person
She says she cannot perceive why New Brunswick would not have sufficient beds for its aged to “live and die peacefully.”
She questions why measures weren’t put in place then, and why the N.B. authorities is not spending a few of the forecasted $774.4-million surplus now to unravel it.
“‘We are working on it,’ just does not cut it anymore. These are human beings with real lives and families. Real people dying in hallways all over New Brunswick hospitals waiting to be seen, assessed, cared for,” she wrote.
Totten ends her letter by urging anybody with mother and father or grandparents at residence over the vacations to “hug them a little tighter and voice your I love yous.”
“We’re all one bad fall away from losing a senior to this failing system.”
