Nursing Homes Don’t Meet Needs
I am appalled at how the Ontario Ministry of Health and Long Term Care is forcing people with disabilities out of the community and back into institutions and nursing homes. After a failed hip operation, complicated by cerebral palsy, I did nine months time in Riverdale Hospital. I called it the Riverdale Jail.
People in nursing homes or institutions are more likely to be neglected than those living in the community. It is a myth that nursing homes are more able to meet special or extensive needs. Nurses and support workers are rushed, they must get the person done as fast as possible, and move on to the next person. They don’t have time to get to know you as an individual, let alone yor individual needs. Often, if your needs are complicated, they just say that nothing can be done rather take the extra time needed to investigate the situation and come up with a solution.
The person in an institution/nursing home becomes an object rather then a person. Since my hips kept dislocating, my feet were put in casts with a bar between them. Two nurses were required to turn me. Instead of relating to me, the nurses would complain to each other about hospital politics. After seven months, I asked one nurse to call me “Marilyn” instead of “Dear” “With all these patients,” she said, “You don’t expect me to remember your name do you?” I had no right to be an individual.
Another time a former boyfriend came to visit me. The RPN (registered practical nurse) asked, right in front of him, if I had a bowel movement that day. I told her that her question was inappropriate. She said that her question was routine hospital procedure. She robbed me of my right to personal dignity.
It is assumed that when you are in an institution you will receive 24 hours of care. When I was in hospital I would, like most people, have a drink with my meal. However, this would lead to needing a bedpan an hour later. The RPN would be having their break. There would only be one nurse on the floor. I was told to hold it for another hour until the RPN’s came back. I had to learn to drink and go to the washroom on the hospital’s schedule.
My legs were wide apart after my operations. A caretaker, seeing my legs under a sheet, asked me if I could have sex. He was later fired for sexually harassing another patient.
I had six therapists in nine months. One physiotherapist told me I would never walk again, giving up on me. I tried to tell her how I felt about not walking and being dependent. She interrupted to lecture me about being lazy. I must learn to put up with the pain without taking drugs. When I asked her if she read my reports, She replied “No, I don’t have time.”
This physiotherapist made me sit with my legs dangling. "No pain, no gain," she said. As she refused to take the time to read the doctors report, she did not know that my femur had been cut to reposition my hip. Dangling my leg not only caused pain but prevented my femur from healing. I had to have another operation to put a rod in my leg: a result of her negligence.
Another physiotherapist had me try on a ready-made brace. “No” she said. “they don’t fit. Nothing can be done about your feet. When I escaped my incarceration, I was able to get custom-made orthotics. These enabled me to stand and practice walking with a walker.
By the end of June, the only therapy I was getting was from an assistant therapist. I had to beg her to help me stand once a day. Her job was to bend down and hold my foot flat on the floor. Since she had arthritis in her knees, she couldn’t bend down and could only half straighten my foot with her foot. Was the hospital staff saying I couldn’t walk again as an excuse not to incur the expense of giving me the long-term therapy I needed?
I know I was not the only one neglected by institutions/nursing home. Recently, I visited a friend who has spent two years living in a palliative care hospital. She was on a respirator. She could not speak above a low whisper and although she had a voice box, it was rarely given to her. When I asked a friend of hers about this, the friend said they probably didn’t give her the voice box because she would be constantly calling the nurses for painkillers. Why isn’t her pain kept under control?
I was told that I would have to stay in Riverdale for seven years. It took that long to get subsidized housing. Fortunately, I already had subsidized housing and was able to transfer to an apartment with attended care. I now live in a supportive living unit, where I have my own apartment, I can go to the washroom when I want to, and come and go when I want to. However, my life is still controlled by the policy and procedures of the agency that provides attendant care. I am looking forward to obtaining individualized funding so that I no longer have my life controlled by strangers and policies.
