Your View

For this discussion I submitted two posts. In the first I stated that my 92 year old mother has lived with me for more than 6 years and that this is where she will stay until her end. I then attached this poem I think captures the essence of this thread.

OLDER FOLKS

I saw some older folks today.
They struggled now to get about.
I wondered how they got that way;
But then I didn't want to shout.

The stride that might have marched to war
Is now a shuffle one foot long.
I see them hoping for one more,
Asking to whom their legs belong.

Some walkers used, others had canes.
It didn't use to be like this.
They don't remember all these pains.
What happened to that life of bliss?

Their sight's not what it used to be.
They can't go long without a break.
For meals they have just toast and tea.
A greater effort they can't make.

Barn dances they remember well,
Their friends and cars, events long past.
What day it is they cannot tell,
Their present recalls do not last.

Some have been locked within their mind.
They plead with us to let them out.
It's not in them to be unkind.
They're so afraid; that's why they shout.

If only someone else would care;
They seem to be so all alone.
Their children had no time to spare.
It's modern 'life' that sets this tone.

There was one daughter with her mom.
To her she shouts, "Don't make a fuss!"
I wished to say, "Respect her some."
In a few years she will be us.

WL of NS,
"It was OK for them to put their parents into a home once they got too old for them to deal with, but now that they are in their parents shoes, they are getting a blast of reality."

It is okay to 'put' parents into a home if that is needed and not everyone needs to. Many parents decide to enter a home of their own free will, their children arguing against.

I don't recall a lot of posters here saying they were 'boomers' and that they put their parents into a home. And, it isn't simply about being too old to deal with.

Many seniors live healthy and active lives up to the end. When a parent cannot be cared for adequately at home, then, institutionalized care may be the only responsible option.

My grandmother lived with my parents until she decided, on her own, to go into a home. My mother, her daughter-in-law, was horrified and did everything possible to talk my grandmother out of it despite the fact that the home wasn't too far away and was a very good one.

My father died in a special care unit. The decision to have him admitted to that unit wasn't difficult, for his children, as he had become a danger to himself and others, especially my mother.

She found it extremely difficult to see her partner in a locked special care unit though she knew it had to be done. The quality of care my father received was excellent and it was a great relief to know he had the care needed and that our mother would be safe.

My mother died at home just prior to the family reaching the decision time of hospitalization. It was very difficult as one sibling had to take leave from work in order for our parent to remain at home and this at a time when children were entering postsecondary.

Most siblings resided a distance away and could offer only limited support.

Every situation is different and, no matter what, there should not be elder abuse of any kind.

Jill,

Thank you. I've often wished I could send someone an e-mail in response to something they've raised in this forum!

What must it be like to live in a nursing home, away from the parts of one's life that have brought comfort and self-fulfillment up to that point... it's hard to think about.

Thank you for mentioning a practical way of helping, and the choice to be part of the solution. Those steps are missing in many of today's problems: people don't know what to do, or they don't think they can do anything.

I was simply railing against the "system" as well. Your idea of talking to the folks directly involved, and furnishing money directly where it can help, opens a path forward.

Shannon:

I know no other way to touch base with you other than this public forum.

Your humility is grounded, your gran will be thrilled to see you and the lovely city of Saskatoon will embrace you.

Marie, I think you are right. The recent cases of neglect and abuse in BC (Retirement Concepts) illustrate what you are talking about. When profit is the motive, cutting staff and curtailing services is the main goal. Ironically, the company that ran these homes just won an entrepreneurship award--presumably because they made a lot of money.

Chris from Waterloo, I'm sorry you feel the way you do. I understand that sometimes we need to blame everyone else for what is wrong in our lives. Cultivating a sense of injury does help to explain and find excuses for one's dissatisfactions. You are not alone. There are a lot of older people who would like to blame the bad state of the world on the feckless young.

I expect the quarrel of the generations will still be going strong when you become one of those nasty seniors--or perhaps, with your humanitarian attitude, you will be the glowing exception.

The selfishness of some people on this forum amazes and saddens me. Saying "seniors are the past", "what goes around comes around", and things of that nature. Something is asleep spiritually, in a person who would say things like that.

I was just debating whether to spend $1000 this holiday season on travelling to Saskatoon to visit my grandmother, who's in long-term care after several strokes. Now I know without a doubt that I will go.

The issue of care for elders needs to be addressed. I think we all have an individual, moral responsibility to help others - regardless of whether we feel the pull in our own pockets, or whether we resent a certain generation (rightly or wrongly) for something they may or may not collectively have caused.

In this particular issue, of appalling conditions in nursing homes, it may seem like there's nothing we can do - but there are things we can do. Thanks to Jill Yuzwa for suggesting some of them in her post.

Jay1: Evidently you didn't understand what I was saying. I'm not advocating investing in our children because we should care about them. I'm saying it makes more sense to invest in children because they are the future, while seniors are the past. Eliminate notions of caring and compassion from the equation and nobody can argue against this.

As for your prediction, you seem to think that happiness comes from having everything one wants and needs. However, to me, happiness comes from the pursuit of these goals, and because, as you say, wants can never be fully satisfied, I'll always have something to go after.

This is why the notion of Heaven doesn't appeal to me. And I wouldn't say I'd never help another person, but it would have to benefit me somehow.

I could write a book on our family's experiences with LTC, and we were actually in a very caring facility.

Please, please, please continue on the thread of the level of training that these workers are coming into the facilities with. It is inadequate to say the least.

The short-term answer for our woes (and believe me they are gut-wrenching) came after the death of my mother.

I decided insteading of railing and complaining about a governmental system that will take years to sort, CONTRIBUTE TO IT and be PROACTIVE FAMILIES!!!!!!. There are some very good programs that the Ministry of Health offered to LTC facility staff at a low cost. But we must help them.

I met with the Director of Care at our facility, asked her what her staff education and training budget was. I asked how donations to a education and training fund would assist her.

She was thrilled that I would even single her division out. She had a small budget that might send a few staff members to these Ministry programs but even hundreds of dollars more would help.

Our family decided in lieu of flowers to ask friends and family to donate to a named staff education and training fund.

Folks, if we take the initiative in the interim, we are working within a framework that exists to help facilities help themselves and the industry's labourforce. Sure, it shouldn't fall to us but are we going to be part of the problem or the solution?

I have read all these posts, both good and bad, for and against, so on.

What I find interesting is that old folks homes have pretty much sucked since the dawn of time, and I feel the only reason why its getting any attention at all lately is that the baby boomers are realizing that they themselves are only one step away from this horrible fate.

It was OK for them to put their parents (WWII generation, the greatest generation in history)into a home once they got too old for them to deal with, but now that they are in their parents shoes, they are getting a blast of reality.

I find this actually rather entertaining, as I hope their "golden years" are just as hoorific as what they put their parents through. I can tell you one thing, I will be taking care of my mommy and daddy myself if they ever get to that point!, But I guess that's only because I LOVE MY PARENTS!!!

Some of these patients have Alzheimers and thats part of it. I dont think that the violence is increasing just the awareness of it.

The people that pay their life savings to have their loved ones taken care of and no care for themselves because they dont have any money left to do so are ot brought into the light.

Hey Rita,

You boomers didn't pay for squat for our generation, lets get that straight.

Your money has gone to big business which has in turn manipulated the government and the economy to the point of near chaos and over the next 30 years we're going to laugh as all your assets become next to worthless.

Thats when our generation is going to pounce. Thanks for coming out with yet another unrealistic point of view from the boomers.

Rest assured, the boomer generation money will be completely dissolved by healthcare, prescription drugs, and deflation in 20-30 years time. :)

Jon from Ottawa is the only person who makes absolutely perfect sense in terms of logic out of all the posts I've read.

Our society is in for a rude awakening with the aging demographics and if the government thinks the next generation is going to bail everyone out with yet another tax increase I smugly suggest they think again.

Our generation lives well below the poverty line and the price of everything is inflated thanks to the boomers. Houses made of $25000 in materials somehow cost $350000.

We have student debts of $50000 to $100000. Cars, furniture, day care costs, the numerous government taxes we pay all drage us down even further.

And people think its our responsibility to help out the old people who lived unhealthy lifestyles, wasted their money on decadence as opposed to being self-preserving and fiscally responsible?

Forget that; I don't feel bad for a single one of you because there is absolutely no comprehension of how bad things have been ruined for the younger generation.

As far as I'm concerned, the saying 'what goes around comes around' is very suitable for these circumstances.

I am surprised at some of the comments directed towards our seniors. These are the people that helped build this country and took care of us as children/grandchildren.

Additionally, these are people that have worked all of their lives, survived the depression and two world wars, NEVER COLLECTING WELFARE, sacrificing so that their children could go to university.

My grandmother died in a nursing home this year. It broke my heart to see such a strong independent lady, a person that never took a handout from anyone, have to share a room with a person with dementia.

My grandmother was fortunate to have family near by to assist as the staffing was not sufficient.

The nursing home she was in was one of the better ones in Edmonton, yet, she fell asleep each night to the ranting and frightened pleas from her room mate.

The lady in the next room sat in her own feces for almost an hour waiting for staff to change her (not enough staff for all of the patients).

There is a severe problem with short staffing, and poor pay. The food is terrible, not a single fresh vegetable insight.

No counselling for new residents to help them deal with the grief and loss that accompanies the relocation to a nursing home. It is deplorable that they room troubled seniors with others.

Sadly, there comes a point for even the most self sufficient family when they are forced to place a loved one in care. When that time comes they should get care on par or better than what we provide for inmates.

For all our seniors have given us, we should be providing decent, sufficient care for their final years. As a society, we owe them!!!

For those that think they will have enough money to get great care for themselves, please think on the current state of the medical system.

Even with the best plans in place, insufficient staff and lack of beds are having an impact right now on patient care.

Do not blame patients.

Nursing home patients are in a confined space with none of their life long sources of stimulation and love. They are with people who speak to them with distain, and often laugh at them, at the least.

They are usually locked into the building. All this at the time in their lives when they most need to feel loved and needed. It cannot be a surprise to anyone that they become very frustrated with their lives and surroundings.

Nursing homes ARE dumping grounds for a culture that does not respect their elders. This is becoming worse, the faster our culture becomes, as their slower pace is even less appreciated.

So, we do not fund trained, caring nursing staff, we let machines lift them into and out from tubs, in most uncaring ways, and relatives rarely, if ever, visit.

There seems to be a misunderstanding here about who, exactly, is *in* Ontario Long Term Care Facilities.

LTC facilities do house seniors, but there is a growing trend even in the one where I work (I am a PSW) of younger residents with increasingly complex needs.

I would even go further and say that a good thirty percent of the 'dementia' ward in the facility where I work are people in their mid to late sixties and younger.

They suffer from anything from acquired brain injuries to Huntington's disease, to MS, to down's syndrome to schizophrenia.

I often feel I am working more in a hospital than I am in working in a supposed 'nursing home for seniors'--there is simply that much variety of illness and care.

They are young, sometimes very strong, and when coupled with violent tendencies are dangerous to those frailer residents and the staff.

We have an average ratio of fifteen residents to one care worker per eight hour shift. Twelve of those residents are what is considered 'full care', as in, they cannot wash themselves, feed themselves or toilet themselves. They need special mechanical lifts to put them into bed.

They need to be fed a special way so as to prevent aspiration of food into the lungs. They have to be turned constantly in bed to relieve pressure points so they do not develope life threatening bed sores.

When one becomes an Early Childhood Worker or babysitter, the Ontario government says you can care for no more than five preschool children per ECE worker.

Sometimes the needs of my residents are more demanding than those of a toddler--So why are the conditions for those I care for left in some Victorian era standards that are comparable to Oliver Twist's sad plea for mercy and more gruel?

I was not at all surprised by this story. What surprises me is the number of people who are not aware of the abuse that can and does happen in nursing homes.

I am also aware that not all homes are bad, however, with worker shortages, low salaries (not for nurses/Doctors) and increased resident numbers I fear that the good homes will be harder to come by.

My grandmother lived for over 20 years in a wonderful Seniors' Home/Nursing Home. Until her last few years there was always a family member living in that community.

For myself, I could feel some peace from knowing that others, besides family members, were keeping an eye out to my grandmother.

There were people who knew her from years ago, there were church members and so on. These were people that visited her even when Family members did live nearby.

It is that sense of community which we have lost. Why? Smaller families, people moving to find employment, more people working longer hours, people are so busy working, commuting, doing their own thing and people no longer get to know their neighbours.

A couple of days ago I was parked on this lovely cul-de-sac. As I waited a number of nearby homeowners came home. They pulled into their driveways, opened up the garage doors and when car was inside the garage door was closed. Noone seen getting in/out of the car.

Long gone are the days when people parked in the driveway and walked to the door. Long gone are the days when people stepped out of their cars and spoke over the fence with their neighbour, or, at the least, waved to the person just pulling into their own driveway.

In the house I was parked in front of, a family with an elderly parent. How many of the neighbours actually know that? How many actually ask after the parent? How many have invited the elderly person into their own home?

Gee, how many of the people on that cul-de-sac actually even know each other? Have actually seen each other?

Jon, Ottawa
"too many people put sentimental rubbish ahead of common sense."

Caring about others is "sentimental rubbish"? In that case those "impoverished children" you mention fit in the same boat! I hope those "impoverished children" will get themselves through post secondary training.

If they want to get a higher level of education they have options for doing so. Won't always be easy. But, why care about those children, that's just "sentimental rubbish"

"happiness comes from ensuring that my own wants and needs are satisfied before I worry about anybody else's."

Most of the seniors now in nursing homes and most heading that way in the next 20 years (at least) managed to find a balance between caring for others and satisfying their own needs.

Caring for others, that includes recognizing that our elders are still a part of humanity and taking care of our own needs do not have to strike each other out.

One can actually do have both and the adults I know can sacrifice a few wants if it will help another. To me that is a mark of adulthood.

The seniors I know and have known never based their happiness on "wants". They based it on their actions. They worked hard to provide for the basic needs of themselves, their children and, yes, even their communities and country.

They had happiness and pride and recognized that pride was not as fleeting as happinesss.

I suspect that you will always be seeking happiness as "wants" are never truly satisfied. Therefore, you will never help another human being.

Reading the numerous threads of governments underfunding by many individuals prompts me to write this....I am a nurse, with an undergraduate and masters degree...have worked and continue to work in acute, home and long term care, I have been involved in gov planning and funding to homes in three provinces, have done inspections and licensing of htese facilities have and also investigeted complaints, abuses, etc.

I continue to also work frontline to keep clinically up to speed....the problem is not entirely funding from the various governments...the problem is legislation that has no teeth to force owners of these facilities to hire staff (which they are funded for), no teeth to address the fact that owners choose to put money in their own bank accounts as opposed to directing it to staffing and training of staff....

ASK YOURSELVES....WHY ARE PRIVATE BUSINESSES IN ALL PROVINCES CHOMPING AT THE BIT TO GET IN ON THIS long term care venture.......IS IT FOR LOVE AND OCMPASSION AND ALTRUISTIC REASONS?

.......HELL NO...IT'S BECAUSE THESE GOLD IN THEM THERE HILLS.....GOVERNMENTS HAVE INCREASED FUNDING TO THESE FACILITIES.....THE OWNERS CHOOSE TO "BE CREATIVE WITH THEIR STAFFING.......

START pressuring the owners of these facilities to staff to levels that they are truely funded for instead of fattening their already gross big bank accounts....wake up everyone.......

this is the true reason why nursing homes are in the sad state they are in.......

I, and many others know this to be the true case as to why care has declined in many facilities.

My husband's uncle gave up the will to live after he fell and broke his hip.

Since he was a bachelor, the hospital decided he need to live in a home.

I listened to a neice and worker talk about him as if he didn't exist, right in front of him. He tried to speak, they ignored him and the worker said he was being difficult.

They placed him in the hospital's long term care, he was dead within the week.

He is not the only case I have saw this happen with.

I saw abuse by nurses on elderly sick patients. I have seen patients punished for speaking up.

I have seen them force fed when they decide they don't want to live anymore and we call what happens to them humane?

The increase in elderly suicide should give us a good idea of what they are thinking.

I can't say I blame any of them.

People treat them as if they are a problem and an inconvenience.

Who wants to live if that is what people think of you?

My grandmother was a problem because she had emphesima, she was religious so she asked me to pray for her to die.

She had already been in the nursing home but was sent to long term in the hospital because they had no oxygen set.It had a DNR on her chart and thry kept bringing her back to life.

When she did die, she died alone and wasn't found for 20 minutes.

No one deserves that kind of treatment.

If we need more staff, hire them for christ's sake and make sure they are trained properly.

Some staff I wouldn't let treat my dog as they are pathetic excuses for human beings as care givers.

In the area I talked of I did take on the hospital/homecare/pallative system and won for people who don't have a chance in hell, the dying, sick, old and vulnerable.

You don't get to choose the nursing home you want your elders to go to, I'll get to that in a second...

In the last 20 decades it's gotten worse and it'll get worse before it gets better.

Homes are getting larger, more and more people are getting dementia and funding is getting smaller, so don't go telling me money has nothing to do with it.

You need more staff? You need the money. It's plain and simple.

Do you think I choose to be in a home?

Do you think I want to be there? Do you think I choose to have dementia?

NO! And I certainly don't hear people saying "put me in a nursing home when I get old sometimes we don't have a choice.

About not being able to choose what nursing home you want.

Here's the policy... CCAC REQUIRES you to choose three nursing homes, yes three, if you only have two you must choose a third.

And you're required to take the first one that comes available.

"Oh but I don't want that one." Doesn't matter! You must take it. They'll tell you "you can transfer later when a bed opens up."

Unfortunately they never do because they're full and "good" nursing homes are doubly full. You'll be lucky enough to get the home you want.

A lot of the violence can be stopped by having the proper number and proper trained staffing available to handle a situation.

Ironically the patients with a history of violence may have been the result of poor conditions in the first place.

My Grandmother was sometimes overdrugged when we went to see her, and a lot of other patients were as well when a particular nurse was on duty.

Why? Because she didn't want to have to deal with them, so she drugged them up.

No wonder my grandmother kept trying to escape from her nursing home, it wasn't a pleasant place to be.

You know there was a day when adult children took care of their elderly parents.

Perhaps its time to seriously rethink the idea of adult daycare for those who really need to work.

Most parents they spent their lives sacrificing for their kids and those kids repay then but dumping them in a facility.

NICE.

I think its time for adult children to step up to the plate and be held accountable for their parents.

No its not easy.

Neither is raising kids.

The other issue is medical abuse.

My great aunt was drugged to death.

She was on 12 drugs...she didnt need ANY of them,all of her ailments were completely curable through better diet and natural means.

She had blind faith in the medical INDUSTRY and lost her life as a result.

Will ANY doctor EVER admit to doing wrong.

Not a chance.Adult children need to wake up and question what is being done to their parents before its too late.

Dont be afraid to question doctors,if they react with anger then mabe something isnt right.

If they visit the doctor and come back with prescription after prescription for minor ailments...start to question.

It may mean their life.If your parents have sudden personality changes theres a good chance its the multitude of drugs theyre on.

My mom will be going to a naturapath thanks.

I want as much time as I can get.

R.N.'s failed to read a resident's file on intake.

1. they did not know the individual was manic depressive.

2.he was under medicated and only given aspirin for phlebitis

3. no meds for psychosis.

4. within 2 days of admission the man became incoherent.

Repeated attempts to get the registered staff to pay attention to his changing behaviour by a certified health care aide was ignored.

By the time the registered staff paid attention the man was too far gone and died.

The time between admission and death was 3 weeks.

The man starved to death.They failed to read his file.

This information was given to me by the health care worker who quit.

A letter was written to the Ministry of Health by the healthcare worker, who gave her name then They stated they couldn't find anything wrong with the books.

She was denied unemployment insurance when she told them she quit because the nursing home's negligence was responsible for the man's death.

Jon from Ottawa.

I was suggesting to you that some of the things you (and your children?) are benefiting from now, including hospitals, schools, sports facilities, exist in part because of the work and resources of those seniors you seem to feel are living an inconveniently long time.

You seem to be saying that old folks should have the grace to push off before they become too demanding.

Part of the discussion here revolves around frail and helpless people who are being hurt in the care facilities they end up in.

Whether the answer is more money, better training, etc. etc. remains to be decided, but surely, we cannot accept that the weak and old be victimized in this way.

These are somebody's Mom or Grandfather.

Is it okay that old people live in facilities where they are neglected? Where they are afraid? Where they are hurt?

I don't think so. Taking care of yourself first seems logical to you but I suggest that there are many things contributed by this society that have gone (and continue to go) towards taking care of you and your family.

Some of the contributors have been (and in fact continue to be because some of them are taxpayers and the gov't is poised to take quite a chunk of their wealth when they die) those seniors that you seem to feel are such a burden.

Megan of Ontario

No one is whining about the lack of money, but that is the issue, whether you want to attributite to individuals, government or demented seniors.

People in seniors care facilities, staff and patients, are suffering because there is simply not enough staff to fully protect patients from other patients or staff.

This isn't a matter of the problem coming from outside the institution. It is an internal matter tied to staff levels and the level of services offered to patients.

Of course they are government funded and regulated, as you state, but they are not all government run.

I am not fully aware of all the issues in Ontario but in B.C. the crisis is coming primarily out of former government or non-profit charity run facilities that have since been contracted out to the private sector.

The rational for privatization was to reduce costs.

The same problem is popping up in each of them. Understaffing, which leads to under servicing.

It's pretty simple.

These privatized operators are getting the same funding or more than the charities did, but employ fewer staff and provide a lower level of services.

You can call that whatever you wish Megan, but in my books it is underfunding of staff and services (this time by private operators), that is creating the climate for abuse.

The B.C. government recently appointed an administrator at one private operaion on Vancouver Island after years of reports and complaints were ignored by management.

This same firm contracts at facilities throughout B.C. and there have been numerous complaints launched at all its facilities by patients and or their families.

It doesn't matter whether it is government or contractors, if the money allotted for the services are withheld, then it is a money issue, plain and simple.

Part of the problem all the way around is, who is listening?

If you complain as a patient or family member, will the patient be targeted?

If you are in the medical profession,will you be dismissed or face a law suit?

If you spend any length of time in any of these faclities,you will see abuse everywhere by all of the above.

The topic might be violence but what about neglect?

Fact remains none of this is new. It has been going on for years.

I think it is only becoming more pronounced because the baby boomers are now getting closer to these facilites with each passing year and are now noticing what seniors have known for years.

It is broke and needs to be fixed before we end up there as we are a rapidly aging bunch of boomers.

From what I have been told by nurses I know, it seems doctors are hesitant to sedate violent patients out of fear of retribution from the patients family and the legal profession.

Somehow increased workers compensation costs and self inflicted injuries to patients are acceptable risks instead of dealing with the inability of a patients family to comprehend the apparent medical and psychological condition of their loved one.

Nurses don't get paid enough to put up with physical abuse.

The frustration of being front line health care workers operating within the irresponsible management of Ontario hospitals is more than enough.

I am just appalled by some of the comments posted on this thread. Did anyone actually read the CBC report?

This is NOT an issue about not enough staff or increased funding to nursing homes. There is absolutely no accountabilty in the existing system anyway so what good is that going to do?

Please stop whining about not enough money - not enough staff. Nobody knows where the money is going to begin with so why give more? It's not accounted for. These are government funded, regulated and inspected nursing homes we are talking about with absolutely no accountability.

If Marketplace can so easily walk into a number of Ontario nursing homes and capture this type of disturbing footage - think about it - MOHLTC compliance asvisors enter these homes for routine inspections and surprise inspections.

Surely they must see the same thing Marketplace depicted by hidden cameras - after all, in some cases, they are in the nursing home for days doing their inspections. If they (the compliance advisors)are not seeing this and/or not reporting it - WHY NOT???

Did I not read in one of these articles by the CBC Investigative Team no one from the MOHLTC including Smitherman would grant them an interview? (The investigative team not Marketplace). Some accountability.

Also, in 2004 Partimentary Assistant to the Ontario Minister of Health, Monique Smith travelled the province to find out "the truth" about what was happening in Ontario's LTC and report back. Her report - "A Commitment to care: A Plan for LTC in Ontario" does not have any indications about the true state of conditions or violence in LTC and yet she supposedly talked and interviewed many staff, families, residents etc. throughout this province.

Maybe she forgot a few people? Maybe she only saw what she wanted to see? What a waste of taxpayer dollars to study - what?.
Is "cover-up" the order of the day?

"But then, how hard can a 90 year old hit you?
Unless they get a weapon somehow, they're more likely to injure themselves. "

How hard can they hit isn't the issue. Its where they hit you and how many times. I've had my shines laid open by walkers.

Also remember how high does one sit in a wheel chair. And at that hight there usally is only one target they aim for. And be they 35 or 95 and unsepected shot to your groin hurts no matter how much force is behind the blow.

I've been hit, punched, kicked, and even bitten. At lest six times in last two years. Granted that isn't a great deal but when you understand the conditions security staff work under. We can't show we are mad, Can't react in a normal way. Or defend in the normal way. If I did I'd be abusive.

We get treated for any injury and advise the staff and our fellow officers to be careful around the offender. And carry on with our duties.

I'm 37. After reading this thread, I myself am now terrified of nursing homes - and I find myself hoping that my life ends before I go into one.

My mother is a resident of a Home for the Elderly in Fort Erie, Ontario. She is suffering from Alzhiemer's disease and has been for the past 8 years.

My concern is with the lack of staff available to supervise my mother and the other residents suffering with this cruel disease. We wouldn't think of leaving toddlers unsupervised for any length of time and yet we grossly understaff homes where this type of supervison is critical.

Is it any wonder we're dealing with problems of staff being injured by residents and residents injuring one another?

Thank you for this report, it unfortunatly is a sad reality that many health care providers are working at levels that are unrealistic.

Gone are the days of having seniors that need simple assistance. We are faced with very complex care, increased total assistance, young extended care, psycological special needs, less mobility,increased violence from residents and families.

We are suffering from injuries that are permenant and dibilitating as a direct result of our working conditions. We reqire an increase in staff not the decrease we are facing,short staffing and gross amounts of overtime that we are working in order to maintain the health of our residents.

The direct attact on our wages has made it difficult to recruit and retain health care providers. Care givers are dedicated to seniors health they are there to do just that because lets face it the working conditions and the pay do not do justice for the priceless seniors that we care for.

My mother went into several nursing homes prior to her death in 1984.

This was in Vancouver.

We investigated many and the first few were privately run.

We found them to be extremely neglectful and disrespectful, even though the outside of the homes were very presentable and in good neighbourhoods, such as Kitsilano and Shaunessy Heights.

After 4 of them, we were able to have her admitted to UBC (I forget the name of the unit) but it was by far the best.

Even so, there was shouting in the adjacent room (a poor elderly First Nations man who was isolated, very lonely and perfectly able to communicate once one recognised the language difficulty.

My husband is a well educated native man and went in and spoke to him.

Another difficulty (language again) is that the practical nurses that assisted her, changed her bed, etc. often spoke little or no English and this isolated my mom.

She often felt they were talking about her.

People did wander into her room often and she had to finally ask them to go.

She was a caring and wonderful mom and all of this saddened me.

JEM

This could just be the beginning of the debate.

As our population continues to age and modern medicine learns how to keep us alive even longer,there will be many debates about how to divide limited resources.

The same people who want the government to spend more for these people, are usually calling for more spending on everything else.

It's to bad we already spent ourselves into $500 billion dollars of debt.

We would have a lot more options now if governments had been more responsible in the past.

Having said that, this has to be fixed properly, and quickly.

Like our ailing health care system.

Both are related, and neither can be fixed by just throwing money at them, or without a long term plan.

Unfortunately,every time we try to communicate changes to anything,the debate turn to political rhetoric.

We will never move anything forward until we are able to eliminate the partisan nature of these consultations.

We owe these people a lot.

Most of them have lived through the great depression, at least one, and maybe two world wars, and spent most of their earning years without the things we have "free" now.IE:health care.

In spite of that, they passed on to us, a debt free country filled with opportunity.

The solutions a certainly going to have to involve the elderly people themselves,all levels of government, and the people who work in this field.

And part of that discussion has to address personal responsibility, and how to offer help to families who would rather care for their own elderly parents and grand-parents.

That's what the elderly now in nursing homes used to do.

For us, when we were children, and for their parents.

For people who ask what the government is doing to help your elderly parents of grand-parents, I too, await the answer.

But I also have to ask "what are you doing?"

Are these nursing homes just your way of passing the responsibility off to someone else?? If so, shame on you too.

Having worked in a hospital with a large extended care unit. As a security officer I work with the staff as well as monitor the unit daily.

And while I can't speak on the level of care in other homes. I can say my staff and I have never seen any form of abuse. And it is one of the things we constantly watch for.

Staff or resident alike it makes no matter its a zero tollerence policy when it comes to abuse. I can say that the units i provide security to are under staffed yet have some of the most wonderful people taking care of our seniors. And when they are to busy to listen or help a resident simply get to the dinning room.

My staff and I are always there to lend a hand. To those who say why keep them. I suggest you take some time and visit a local home.

You may just find out that there is plenty to learn from our seniors. Or maybe you'll enjoy the warmth you feel from the smile and thankyou you get. Simply by saying hello and taking a minute to stop talk and listen.

About 10 years ago, I worked in Ontario nursing homes.

They started a new system of relying on documentation to determine the amount of funding that any particular home was eligible to receive.

Some homes caught on to the new system very well and demanded nurses take time to document all of their activities, others were already too swamped with a heavy workload to bother implementing the new system.

I recall many discussions about how this was going to lead to a serious crisis in the system because those who needed funding the most were overlooked for those who had time to do the massive amount of paperwork involved in documenting all the activities that take place during a shift.

Shortly after submitting my time study, I suffered a back injury and was offered very little support from my union in the compensation case which was denied.

My feeling was that the company wanted me out because my time study was very detailed and they wanted to deny the true workload.

I worked in another home where the conditions were so bad that it was intolerable!

I could only last a few weeks, the place was loaded with elderly people sitting in geri-chairs staring at the blank walls.

One of them slid out of the chair and was sort of hanging there by the seat-belt, I ran to rescue and started yelling for help at the top of my lungs and I could see about 5 nurses standing behind a glass area at the nurses station.

They all claimed they couldn't hear me screaming.

I couldn't stand to go back to work at that place.

From the reports I see here things have certainly not improved.

Rita Guigon: All I'm doing is questioning the sense of spending taxpayer money to extend the life span of seniors who can no longer contribute to society at the expense of impoverished children who can't afford post-secondary education or certain medical expenses and as a result will spend their entire lives collecting welfare instead of being productive members of society.

It's like picking a company to invest in: would you invest in an older company with a great past that you know will go bankrupt in 5 years, or a brand new company with great potential to thrive over the next 50 years?

To me, that's a no brainer, but too many people put sentimental rubbish ahead of common sense.

As for selfishness, I think everyone is trying to live a happy life.

For some, happiness comes from helping their fellow humans, but to others (like me), happiness comes from ensuring that my own wants and needs are satisfied before I worry about anybody else's.

To each his or her own.

If anyone wants to know more about this matter, read "End of the Line" by Maria Bohuslawsky. I used to work in health care and there is not a nursing home in any major centre that had not had cases of abuse.

Anyone who denies it is lying. One of the things that can be done and was implemented by the Manitoba Government is to insist that all nursing homes have a patient advocate.

This person should be a social worker not a nurse as unfortunately a nurse is likely to side with the other nurses and not be seen as unbiased by the residents or their families.

Even residents with dementia can give information and it is amazing what other residents who do not have dementia can tell someone they trust. Often they do not want to tell their families as they do not want to worry them, so a patient advocate in every nursing home would be a good start. Also for profit versus non profit.

Guaranteed the non profit ones are usually providing better care as the money goes back into the home, not into the pockets of shareholders.

Nursing home care is an integral part of the health care system and both suffer from the same money problems. After all, the funding comes out of the same pot.

Both the Feds and the provinces have become so focused on the bottom line that the patients/residents/customers have dropped to the bottom of the priority list. The system itself has become the priority, not the people it was designed to serve.

One would be hard pressed to find even one efficiently run government bureaucracy anywhere in the world. Their very nature and structure results in vast amounts of money being mismanaged.

That is the unfortunate reality in a publicly funded and politically managed universal system such as ours. The problem is not a lack of money, it's that the money is not going to the right places.

We must demand that our governments start with a blank sheet and, using management models and resources from private business, build a new structure that views us as people and customers rather than "cases" or "patients".

By starting from that revolutionary premise they can then build a public system that puts the priority on efficiently and effectively serving our real health needs while at the same time managing the financial side responsibly. The theme could be "People before Politics".

The current system is not really universal health care. It is more like shared misery. Tinkering with the system and throwing more good money after bad will simply not work.

Continuing to do the same old things in the same old way with the same old people will guarantee the same old results. We need to openly admit that it's totally broken and immediately launch an all-out overhaul effort.

Do we have the guts to do it? Personally, I doubt it but I can always hope.

Oh dear me Joe from Ottawa (If the government is going to provide assistance to anybody, it should be spent to prepare our children to become productive, contributing members of society, not wasted on those who are one bad step away from the grave.

Seniors have had upwards of 50 years to save up for this particular situation and those who didn't shouldn't expect a handout, especially at the expense of our future.)

And those seniors you would shunt off to glue factories...what did they spend their money on? Did they perhaps educate, feed and clothe you? Did they perhaps pay taxes for the hospitals, schools, sports facilities in which you received no end of free and unearned services?

I can't believe the selfish nonsense that you're spouting!

The issue is not socialized medical care. It is ELDER ABUSE in government approved care facilities. Socialized medical care is a secondary largely irrelevant issue.

In BC if you as a senior have the means to pay, you as a resident of a LTCF will pay 80% of the daily cost in a government approved room.

You can of course choose to pay 100% in a non-government approved room. The government health authority only allocates approximately 3 hours of care per day per resident in government approved facilities. This is not enough to ensure adequate care. I can & do pay extra for supplemental care.

However,I expect society to look after crime control collectively. I similarly expect society to look after crime for our senior citizens.

Unfortunately, I am unable to find anyone accountable for providing this protection. Instead I am hearing on this forum that these people need to look after themselves. What utter nonsense!

When my grandmother went to the care home, we went to visit her. She had a huge black eye.
I asked the nurse what happened, and was told another resident likes to hit everyone.
My grandmother was 95, the hitter, was 63.

I asked what they do about this sort of thing.
The nurses all joked around,"oh you don't want to mess with Irene, she will hit you too"
and all had a giggle. To the nurses it was almost comical.

Chris from Waterloo

Just because I saved up enough money in my pension doesn't guarentee me the service I need (unless it's private) when I'm older. It only means I can use that money to buy food and things NOT the service. Service is supported by staff and there is not enough of it.

I can have all the money in the world but if I get put into a nursing home I'm on the same schedule as the rest of them. ONE bath per week. I'm not allowed to take my time to eat and if I don't eat at the scheduled lunch TOO BAD I gotta wait for supper.

Unless my pension pays for private health care that's a different matter.

As for the violence, put yourself in their shoes. You're alone, you're not allowed to eat when you want, you can't bathe until your scheduled to, you're forced fed. You're overdosed with medication so they don't have to deal with the things, and CARE, you need! Don't you think you'd be stressed out AND it's amplified if you have dementia.

Think man, THINK! You have to find the reason for the violence, not a solution for getting rid of the offenders.

If you saved enough money you'd be VERY wise to use that money and hire a personal caregiver if you can afford it.

Unfortunately the majority of us don't have that option so we're left with trying to fix a situation that is not on the governments priority list.

I cannot believe how poorly we treat our seniors!!! Our seniors are our treasures (or should be) and should be treated as such.

Would you leave your child in a home to defend himself emotionally and physically? You would never leave your child in such conditions and the government would never allow such conditions without regulations and training for all staff so why does it happen with our seniors?

Unfortunately, our seniors become our "children" and need as much or more care, love and patience.

Thanks to CBC for bringing this to the front and maybe our poitians will wake up and realize that they too will one day be old and need help.
We MUST treat our seniors with love, dignity and care.

An individual was asking why the taxpayer has to pay the bill to take care of people he is labelling as immature dead beats who lived for the moment.

First, because not all care homes are government sponsored it only has partial revelance. Second, if you were abandoned while a youth, the state would look after you. Same duty of care, different end of the spectrum.

Plus they paid taxes their whole lives. Third, what happens to your parents, should the stock market crash or some other emergency/unforseen event liquidates their life savings? From the tone of all your posts, they should have planned better.

Maybe you would like to euthanize your own parents. It would certainly save you time and money compared to caring for people who helped raise you.

I'm not touching the rehabilitation / incarceration thing. But I can tell you it takes over 88k annually to care for a non-tax paying citizen. Guess which is better for the country. Maybe we should euthanize them too.

Your posts show complete disdain for anyone who is poor, obese, or generally speaking down on their luck and needs someone to look out for them. I can only sincerely wish that you never get in a car accident which lays you up causing you to put on weight, and then takes whatever savings you have so you end up in a home.

Who looks after you then, when you can't? Karma comes back.

Well said, Chris from Waterloo. Anybody out there will say it makes much more sense to invest in the future than in the past.

If the government is going to provide assistance to anybody, it should be spent to prepare our children to become productive, contributing members of society, not wasted on those who are one bad step away from the grave.

Seniors have had upwards of 50 years to save up for this particular situation and those who didn't shouldn't expect a handout, especially at the expense of our future.

Let's also take a look at why some of the residents are feeling that they need to act out physically while in a nurisng home.

My late father in law was a gentle and kind person and was an eternal optimist. He ended up in a nursing home and over a period of 12 months became increasingly frustrated and eventually physically acted out his frustration.

The level of care that he received contriubted highly to his frustration - being left alone for hours, no one helping him with simple tasks such as going to the bathroom.

As family, we were there evrey day more than once. It was heart breaking to see him turn physical and then being labelled as violent without ANY staff taking a look to see why he was feeling this way.

Those poor souls who do not have family checking in onthem are doomed. I do not believe for one second that his personality changed from gentle to violent on its own. I believe with all my heart that he was acting out his frustration because of sub standard care.

So let's take a look at why these residents are feeling this way, how facilities and staff contribute to that and what can be done about it before we simply look at placing these residents in more secure facilities.

There was one incident where we went to visit my father in law and found him on the floor of his room, bleeding from his head. The blood had dried enough that you could tell he had been lying there for quite some time. Yet no one could tell us what happened or why so much time had gone by before he was discovered - by family.

Our nursing homes need better trained, better paid staff and more of them. I would bet the violence would drop drastically.

Food for thought:

Why are marrried couples seperated in nursing homes?

If they have spent their lives together up until then, shouldn't they be allowed the comfort of being together until they die?

Also if you are a gay person, male or female, how are they being treated by staff and residents?

Why do we as a society forget seniors still feel all the same things we do whether they are demented, sick or old?

These things could also be part of the violence in nursing homes.

Bravo for your story on nursing homes! My mom was in a nursing home for over 8 years.

She lived in 3 different homes. While in the second nursing home my mom was attacked 3 times before the authorities finally decided to move her to another nursing home.

Your story is timely and right on. Even in a "good nursing home" the family must monitor what is happening constantly. This cannot always be done due to distance, other family responsibilites and work.

It is interesting to note that during the last provincial election, only Howard Hampton and the NDP raised the issue of seniors and nursing homes. Do we not think we too will grow old and need help?

Congratulations for having the courage to present this story.
Tina Zink-Brawn

Just want to clarify some things here for people...people in nursing homes are those who no longer can care for themselves.

I'm not sure how that automatically means that the taxpayer (me) has to pick up the tab?

Where is this person's retirement savings? Has their house and all their possessions been sold? Are they already receiving government assistance?

I love how the bleeding hearts in Canada always feel the taxpayer should pick up the tab on yet another social injustice. But unfortunately, this is the bottom line.

If you worked at Tim Horton's your whole life, didn't save a penny, blew it all on your lifestyle, then yes, you will be staying at a home that is less attractive than some of the more expensive ones...this is common sense people so start using your brains.

Additionally, if there is abuse going on at the homes, those who commit the foul should be held accountable. Unfortunately our justice system has no teeth to it thanks to those who feel rehabilitation is better than incarceration.

By the way, anybody have any evidence that rehabilitation is better than incarceration? I have never seen any over the past 30 years and would love to see some.

Personally, I think we all know its a bunch of nonsense and is an excuse to allow criminals a 1000th time to rip us off or assault someone.

And this will get the crib rocking, but I think its high time the Canadian government started looking at euthanasia as an option for dealing with an aging demographic.

After all, do we need to keep the 94 year old bed ridden man with a terminal disease alive at the cost of allowing a 12 year old girl starve on the streets while engaging in prostitution.

I know where my help would be going...wake up people!

I must say that I am not that surprised by what a lot of people are saying about lack of staff and poor training and lack of facilities.

Supposedly there have been millions or even billions spent on this situation and get these terrible situations remain for families to deal with.

I personally had always promised my father, a veteran, that he would never have to go into a home if he didn't want to.

In May 2006, I left my job and took up caring for Dad full time - he passed away in January of this year at 92. While I believe that this is the best way to proceed if at all possible; it is not always an option available to some families.

I learned a great deal over the last year, I can tell you! I found that the best help I got was from Veterans Affairs Canada and the worst help was in the lack of facilities and day care from our BC government.

The time I spent with Dad will be my most valuable memory of him.

I am shocked that the federal government does not demand an accounting of all the funds that they remit to the provinces for health care etc.

It certainly would be interesting to find out where all this huge amount of money goes and I think we all deserve an answer as it is our tax dollars they are spending!

To all of you, who have yet to face the situation of elderly parents, I certainly hope that the situation gets better before you have to face these dilemmas.

It is obvious to me that violent demented nursing home residents should definitely be segregated in a closed ward for the protection of the other residents; and with close supervision, so they don't turn against each other.

(Closed circuit cameras like in banks etc. could help to keep an eye on them.)

The present situation is simply unacceptable and inhumane. Insufficient staffing is of course another matter that needs to be addressed.

I have been a hospital R.N. for 40 years and have on several occasions been hit (hard!) by elderly demented violent patients - yes, even in a hospital. Another R.N. received a broken arm! So I know of what I speak!

This is not a situation which calls for humour. Unfortunately, it has developed over time into what it is, compounded by privatisation, government neglect, personal apathy and public ignorance. It will not get better by itself.

Ask yourself - "How much of a salary would I expect to receive for doing the work involved in looking after a feeble elder, an incontinent senior, a psychiatric welfare case, a dangerous offender?

Until government removes care-for-profit-only from the alternatives we must consider for some of our citizens, and fully funds competent staffing, at responsible homes (no passing the buck for fear of reprisal from management) we must all consider our own eligibility for eventual placement within the confines of a substandard shared ward.

B.Kelley Brantford

I can appreciate how long eight hours is in an emergency room, just a bit shorter than the wait when you have no ER to get help in such as when you have no health insurance in a pay-as-you-go-system.

But let's stay on track. We are talking of issues in seniors' nursing homes, not ER nor the doctors's office.

You already have two tier care in nursing homes, (I'll bet there's three tier), but unless you have enough wealth you do not have access to two tier and that is the factor advocates of private health care don't like to talk about.

I suspect your real argument against our universal health care system is you sometimes have to wait for a service.

There is a simple answer to resolve line ups. More money.

But B. Kelley, so many people are screaming for "tax cuts" that we are told of course we can't put any more funds into health care, people deserve a taxbreak first.

This has nothing to do with Tommy Douglas, certainly not Pierre Trudeau and absolutely nothing to do with socialized medicine.

It's all about money and the unwillingness of government to spend it on health.

And, btw, I'm already paying a monthly fee of $54 weather I pop into ER or not so I think I'll pass on your added user fee proposal.

my mother is well into her 70s now, and although she is still able to function independently, we felt, my 3 bros and 3 sisses, that she should no longer be alone in case of a fall or a quick change in physical or mental health that wold pose a threat to her well-being.

She stayed with us for just under 2 years and now she is with my brother because we had to move for work.

At this point in time, finding a place for her in a long term care facility is not an option. We all felt that we just could not do that to her.

I suppose we may need to all take turns caring for her.

But, what happens when her mental capacity starts to diminish? When her physical well-being is compromised by her aging body? Will we have the means to ably care for her? These questions may yet need answering.

I feel for those having to, and who have had to, answer those questions and make decisions they may not have wanted to make.

And I also feel for those parents who would be the subject in those decisions.

Being placed somewhere, with the promise of frequent visits, to be looked after by complete strangers, and having to room with complete strangers, does not sound that appealing.

Yet, it is, and would be, a necessary decision. And not an easy one.

I dread the day we may have to make that decision.

Yes Nursing Homes need more funding and more staff.... but Residents really need their families' support.

We can blame the Government , we can blame the staff ,we can even blame other Residents, about abuse in Homes.

The worse form of abuse is neglect. Many of our elderly are left in Nursing Homes with little or no family contact and support.

After reading many of the comments posted here I am astonished to see how many said their parent or elderly family member were fearful of residents or staff in the Homes.

You their family member are their first line of protection...why did you leave them in a situation that they apparently feared?...

You can't ignore a situation then blame everyone else for the problem. Families have to take their share of the blame. The greatest fear is to be abandoned by the ones you love, and too many are.

There are many families that are actively involved in their elder parents life, while living in a Nursing Homes.

They come to know the Homes and the Staff that are taking care of their parents, as a result the Resident's lives are that much better.

There are many Homes and Health Care workers providing excellent care to our elderly. All is not the doom and gloom that is being painted across the media.

If you love your elder parents, you do what you have to do, to make their lives better, just like they did for you.

Finally the CBC has the courage to bring the gross injustice facing residents in Ontario nursing homes to the uninformed public. I personally have been trying to expose this for the past couple years.

Neglect and abuse are systemic in the Long Term Care Homes and nobody wants to take responsibility for what has been going on for some time.

Violence and wet, saturated diapers are just the tip of the iceberg. Almost every level of personal care is compromised significantly.

We don't have to go abroad to find the death camps or killing field. They are alive and well in our own backyards.

Please continue to put the pressure on the government, owners and all stakeholders to end this travesty and put it to rest.

If that means legal action against the Ontario government and closing the door to public sector profits so be it.

Our vulnerable residents deserve no less.

Almost everyone is responsible for what seems to be happening in long term care facilities these days.

1. The family, for placing the elderly there in the first place. So what if they all need to work to survive in today's rat race, sometimes at more than one job, and, thus, have no time to provide proper care for their parent(s). If they could only find a place to put them up and be looked after by,

2. The caregivers, for being forced to work in understaffed conditions and, thus, not being able to effectively provide adequate care to the elderly. So what if they work long hours? The unions would say that at least they have a job, and a good paying one, according to,

3. The governments, for allowing all this to happen by cutting back facilities AND personnel. It'll look better that way on the budget, and, thus, to the taxpayers.

Heck, that way would ensure their having money to vote on a raise for their own salaries.

If an elderly person enters a facility bitter and resentful at everyone for being put there in the first place, right or wrong, those feelings would become intensified at the onset of dementia, no?

It may also be that neighbour may just not get along with neighbour. And they do not have the option to move elsewhere.

Perhaps, the certain caregiver does not like the job and only the money the comes from the job. Come on, we know it happens everywhere.

Service with a smile is deemed better service and responded to more favourably.

The only solution, I think, would be to isolate those elderly, deemed violent by disease, condition, or nature, in a separate facility and cared for by those further trained for the corresponding behavior so as to protect all involved in the provision of care.

Although I was not a proponent of euthanasia before I read the comments on nursing home violence, I now feel I need to reconsider.

How shocking to think that death is better than living because you have grown old and not able to care for yourself! What has happened to our society? Where is our compassion?

Where is the compassion of our provincial and federal governments that they would allow those who have contributed so much to the growth of our society to die with so much indignity?

It is truly amazing that there are so many lobby groups out there fighting for those precious government dollars and all the politicians can do is respond to them while ignoring a basic human right of the aged in our society.

And, don't forget that these oldsters have paid their dues while most of the groups lobbying for funds have not.
There are times when I'm ashamed to be a Canadian and this is one of them.

i think it was steve that said he was a supporter of euthanasia for himself. as a point of clarification, that would be "assisted suicide". euthanasia is what we do to someone else....we euthanize sick dogs and lame horses.

when someone, therefore, suggests that euthanasia is a good thing they are presuming that some lives are of lesser value. where do you draw the line.

the elder may be a nuisance to the young, but they have paid their "dues". how about those expensive diabetics, m.s sufferers, cancer patients, cripples, mentally deficients....there is no end and so there should be no beginning.

my father passed away this summer at the age of 91. for the last five years of his life he had alzheimers and before that dementia.

no one will ever be able to diminish the incredible impact this man had on all the people who's lives he touched. ending his life was never a consideration.

his final years weren't as perfect as we, his children, would have liked them to be, however, he was never abused and never afraid.

he was able to live out his final years with as much dignity as our flawed but generally well meaning system would allow.

Having just fallen down the stairs a few hours ago, let me fill you in on something. I still have enough reason and ability to react fairly quickly but imagine for a moment a senior falling...

The fall, can't stop themselves, maybe lost their balance, light headed, misstep.

They are knocked unconcious, when they wake up, they are in excruciating pain and are terrified because they don't know where they are, maybe don't even know what happened.

They lose their independence by being told when to eat, get up, go to bed, etc.

It becomes apparent soon, they are never going home again and they now lose their independence, their decision making, their lives.

Next stop nursing home where they are treated as children.

If you have lived with your spouse, they are no longer with you.

If you have lived alone, you are now forced to live with someone. [imagine the person you can't stand the most and being forced to live with them]

If you suffer from dementia imagine having to wear an alarm that goes off everytime you go near a door and a door that is locked.

You are locked in a jail and what was your crime, you got sick through no fault of your own.

Welcome to being old, there is little dignity.

To: Jay1, Canada

You totally missed the point.

It doesn't really matter how the Wino got to be one, and his past occupations or avocations are totally irrelevant. What matters is that he was in that emergency room BECAUSE he was living life on the edge of society in a self-induced permanent alcoholic haze and contributing absolutely nothing.

Those of us who work diligently and honestly, pay our taxes and raise our children responsibly are, according to you, supposed to get in line behind those who just suck up oxygen and take up space.

To follow your reasoning, the wino should also be provided with a 2500 sq. foot house or invited to live in one. I wonder how many of these street people you have living in your home. If the answer is none, don't throw stones.

The philosophy of human entitlement regardless of contribution is the major reason our entire society as well as our health care system is in the mess it is.

Fighting in one of Canadian most respected homes should be avoided at all cost.

It was sad to see senior fighting on camera for something that does not make sense to me.

The government should establish something like sport or playing dominion, these will keep them busy instead of fighting.

I have worked in residential care facilities for over 20 years, and seniors' care for the past 4 years.

Front-line staff in these fields are very poorly paid and often work in excess of 50 hours per week at thankless and unpleasant tasks, in stressful environments with insufficient resources.

Those factors together might be a strong enough predictor for high rates of injury claims and sick leave. But what really puts many of these staff at risk is that they are not physically up to the tasks required of them.

It takes a reasonably fit and energetic individual to get through a day of personal care work. Many of the staff in these facilities are barely fit enough to be on their feet all day or strong enough to manage a full shift of lifting, twisting, turning and bending.

An increasing level of aggressive behavior from residents merely exacerbates a sorry combination of factors that already guarantees that injury and illness claims would be among the highest of any workplace.

Not all nursing homes are terrible. My mother (who passed away last month) had dementia.

I went to her nursing home every day for her last year to feed her (oh those who had NO regular family visiting - shame......).

I agree the homes are very understaffed - her unit had 16 residents out of 30 who had pureed meals and needed to be hand fed, and they had the same number of caretakers of other units where almost all could feed themselves.

However, I found that almost all of her caretakers were concerned and caring, but understaffed!

Volunteers were so appreciated. Good as her nursing home was, it is not where I would hope to spend my last days - and I AM being VERY nice to my own children!!!!

Ray Fortier,

So sorry to hear of your father's experiences and happy to hear that he had family members available to keep an eye out for him.

I do, however, disagree that staff are not responsible... They are responsible as long as they hide events, don't give full disclosure.

Unless staff speak up, speak out, report all incidents of abuse (emotional, psychological, verbal, physical, financial), then, nothing will change. Family members cannot do it alone.

"This event was hidden from family members until I noticed the heavy bruising and inquired.

The staff would only acknowledge an incident with no specifics.

However a patient finally came forward to desribe in incident.

The administrator was evenually fired and life goes on.

The staff at these faclities are not responsible for these situations it is government that forces these impossible conditions on them without considering the hazards."

Rita, Saskatoon, notes

"Problem is that when we put old people "away", we can stop relating with them as people and consider them only as problems."

Not just when we put them "away", even before that they are considered, by some, to be problems. Who has time to wait for the senior in front of them in the line up? Who gets frustrated by the slowness, the questions or the lack of questions?

Many of us forget that not only does age slow us down, eventually, and vision, sight, mobility isn't quite 100%. Add on to that the fast pace at which things change. What many of us take as normal is quite non-normal for the elderly. Debit cards are truly a recent thing when you are 70 years old.

Seems many of us are impatient enough with our day to day stressors. We have even less patience for those older than us. That is sad.

Our elders are not problems and they are not things. They are people, they are humans with a lot of experience and living behind them.

We can all learn from them, even if that simply means observing them while they "slow" down the line. Be surprised what one can learn by just taking a breath, being patient and observing.

Andrew, Hamilton - Much of what you said I agree with. What I particularly agreed with was the response of residents when taken down the hallway for that weekly bath -- yes, they are scared, they are at the mercy of others and their decision making skills have been lost or taken away from them.

There's so much violence in nursing homes because there isn't enough staffing.

A lot of these people have dementia and they don't know what's going on!

Imagine, every Wednesday, for example is bath time and suppose your a male and two nurses come in strip you down throw you in sheet and drag you down the hall to your bath, by every room (strangers).

That would be terrifying!

I'd definitely fight back and if I had dementia.

MY GOD! Most of these people think they're being robbed or something, it's no wonder they fight back!

And if during the week they happen to pee on their clothes NOPE! doesn't matter it's not your bath day.

Government keeps cutting back.

And it's all because they want their money.

As an Occupational Therapist myself I tear my hair out whenever I hear about these things and the government just doesn't understand.

I'm so FRUSTRATED with the system!

Lack of funding, lack of staffing. Plain and simple.

Nursing homes need more staffing and they need more funding.

B. Kelley, Brantford, says,

"A couple of years ago one of my young grandchildren developed pneumonia and, since his parents can't find a family doctor, he was forced to wait for care at an emergency ward for over 8 hours.

To add insult to injury, he then had to share a treatment room with an abusive, stinking wino who insisted on verbally abusing everyone in sight and repeatedly recited his entire vocabulary of filthy language.

Did he deserve equal treatment? Not in my world."

I think your grandchild deserved as close to equal treatment as the wino as possible.

I don't know how long that wino was waiting, thankfully he did get a treatment bed just like your grandchild did.

The wino probably doesn't have a family dr. either.

I wonder why that wino is a wino??

Wasn't one of those people abused by a teacher, religious person, scout leader, a parent....by any chance?

I don't suppose that wino could have been a soldier at one time? I think even Romeo Dallaire slept on a park bench with a bottle, at some point. That wino wasn't Dallaire by any chance, was it?

Is it possible that our tolerant Kate is one of your grandchildren?

The attitude and compassion (lack of) are quite similar.

Beverley Smith, Calgary, states

"The caregiving role is being downgraded for women and commercialized instead."

Are men not caregivers?

The caregiving role is changing, in many ways for many people and for many reasons.

It has nothing to do with downgrading the role for women. Women still have a very big role to play.

We do have a large number of elderly and getting elderly!

We are also living longer.

Consider, also, that families tend to be smaller than a few generations back, thus, fewer to share the duties of caring for the aging parents.

Then, people often have to move away from their hometowns to obtain work.

What to do when children live a few provinces away, even just a few communities away??

Move the parent to a unfamiliar place, away from the little they may still know/remember??

There are many scenarios, many circumstances.

It has nothing to do with downgrading the woman's role.

I suspect, though, that there are many woman who wish that were so and that the men would take up more of the slack.

At some point every elderly person will need some form of institutionalized care and that can include care being delivered at home

Some years ago my late father was a victim of violence in an extended care hospital in BC.

This all happened as a result of the Government of the day closing institutional facilities throughout the province that house violent patients.

Each region was required to absorb X number of that population regardless of secure enviroments or not.

At the time many of these patients we allowed to roam freely between the 8am to 8pm hours with inadequate security for the safety of others.

My father was a stroke victim and was able to knock his attacker out cold with his one good arm and fist while laying immobile in his bed.

He suffered broken dentures, head and body bruises c/w emotional truama.

This event was hidden from family members until I noticed the heavey bruising and inquired.

The staff would only acknowledge an incident with no specifics.

However a patient finally came forward to desribe in incident.

The administrator was evenually fired and life goes on.

The staff at these faclities are not responsible for these situations it is government that forces these impossible conditions on them without considering the hazards.

This is all done to economize operations and save money.

It should be their parents, friends and relatives that become exposed as a result of their questionable decision making.

Tough topic.

My mom passed away a couple months ago and one of the reasons she gave up, I think, was that she realized that once discharged from the hospital, she could no longer live in her own home.

It was tough during the last year of her life to give her the care she needed to live on her own, and there were times when we felt overwhelmed and also felt our skills weren't adequate but, somehow, it worked out.

I don't know how we would have handled putting Mom in a home.

I know for sure she would have hated it.

As I read these stories, I'm sorry for families who are faced with these choices and sorry for the staff who do their best under such difficult conditions.

I think we should do a lot more to train people who must work with the elderly.

We should pay decent wages.

We should train volunteers to take up some of the burdens. We should focus on keeping our seniors as well as possible so they can be independent for as long as possible.

And violent seniors should not be housed along with others.

I don't think people in our society should pray to die in order to avoid the horrors of nursing homes.

That is an indication that something is going very wrong with how we treat people.

Euthanasia is a different topic.

I don't think it should be considered as a "solution" to the problems of aging.

It shocks me that some people can speak so cruelly of older people and also treat the frail and aged so badly.

Problem is that when we put old people "away", we can stop relating with them as people and consider them only as problems.

To: Alan of Kamloops

You asked for an alternative to the great Douglas universal health care fiasco? Well, here's a few suggestions:

1. Impose reasonable user fees for everyone to cut the rampant abuse of Doctor's time for minor ailments.

2. Wrestle control of hospitals back from the non-medical service unions who have negotiated so much featherbedding into their contracts that there's two people on the payroll for every job.

I've seen it first hand and the absolutely outrageous waste of money and resources is sickening.

3. Permit two-tier health care to develop so that those who can afford private care funded out of their own pockets or through private insurance can opt out of the public system.

This would attract many doctors back from the U.S. and take a lot of pressure off of the public system.

4. Abandon the myth that everybody deserves absolutely equal treatment all the time.

A couple of years ago one of my young grandchildren developed pneumonia and, since his parents can't find a family doctor, he was forced to wait for care at an emergency ward for over 8 hours.

To add insult to injury, he then had to share a treatment room with an abusive, stinking wino who insisted on verbally abusing everyone in sight and repeatedly recited his entire vocabulary of filthy language.

Did he deserve equal treatment? Not in my world.

Tommy Douglas may be the patron saint of the far left and they consider it to be almost blasphemous to cast any cloud over his memory but there are many who believe that it's a dead heat between he and Pierre Trudeau as to who pulled the biggest political con job of the last century.

My last suggestion.

The next time you spend 10 hours in the emergency room sitting next to a wino and waiting for a doctor to show up, look skyward and give thanks to Saint Tommy.

My father was in a nursing home for the last 4 years of his life.

His fear of the staff who worked at the nursing home surprised me.

I think they scare the elderly; when I would ask why he felt this way, he didn't want to say anything in case the staff would discover what he had told me.

He was also over-medicated to keep him quiet.

The staff who work at these homes are not well-trained to serve the elderly.

I hope this will change.

I sent a letter to Harper and Clements Re: Crime as a hot button.

Perhaps they should look at the crime in our nursing facilities where patients are attacking each other.

Some of that huge surplus would go a long way in solving the problem by hiring more personel instead of spending it in places like Afghanistan.

Perhaps they should start looking after their own.

My mother has worked in a nursing home for years.

As a child, I have seen her come home with black eyes and bruises.

She still works at the same nursing home and is still continually being abused.

The nurses feel like there is no one to turn to - there is nothing that can be done but to take the abuse.

My mother's stress level is unbelievably high and her health suffers because of it.

Governments in Ontario must share most of the blame for the state of Nursing Home problems, for closing mental hospitals,& discharging mentally ill patients from hospital Psychiatric wards.

Nursing homes are ill equipped, they lack proper space, money,& expertize required to care for the mentally ill.

Assaults on other residents became common place because of this factor.

Assaults come from other sources, people with Alzheimer's who are sometimes aggressive, & from nursing assistants.

Some staff should never be allowed to care for the elderly.

My mom lived in a nursing home for 5 years, a stroke left her in a wheelchair & no speech, otherwise normal.

She was attacked by an aggressive mentally ill man, his family would not allow him to be restrained.

She was also attacked by an aggressive mentally ill woman who was placed in her room waiting to be placed elsewhere.

She was unrestrained as well.

My Mom was by then (as one would expect), completely and utterly terrorized, was unable to scream for help.

She was attacked again by the very hands that cared for her everyday, a "Nursing Assistant".

She slapped my Mom in the face several times cheek to cheek.

I became aware of this from my Mom and she immediately pointed her out.

I reported this to the Head Nurse immediately, and because my mother could not speak they would not accept her motions of what happened, and the offending assistant pointed to her head that Mom was Crazy.

Needless to say it didn't end there.

I agree with Ken Le Clair, governments at all levels must get together.

Money & building spaces are needed for the special care of severely mentally ill, and, people with Alzheimer.

Nursing Homes should also be given better funding to provide the excellent care residents deserve.

Staff should be better screened and better trained.

go figure just like everything and everyone else in this country, people taking advantage and abusing any power that they can obtain.

It is about time that our society had a real wake up call of what we are turning into.

I am disgusted be people every day when i read the news, what ever happened to a good deed.

I would like just once to read the news and have the top story a heart warming one, not what we have been getting a steady stream of recently.

BTW, some of the comments here are pretty demented. What's with that?

Charlene sez: "when you had to pay a doctor or a hospital, FAMILIES looked after the sick, the old and the dying.

And do you know what?They received better care, they were happier and so were the families."

Doesn't work that way, and probably never did.

If an elderly parent was simply frail and unable to live on their own, moving in with one of the children was an option, and still is.

Unfortunately, if Mom or Dad has dementia, looking afer him/her in your own home is not an option.

You may believe that you have an obligation to look after this person in your home.

Not so.

You are not equipped to keep an Alzheimer's patient confined, after she is found wandering across a busy street, 8 blocks from your home, clad only in pyjamas and slippers.

You are not equipped to protect yourself when he decides that your are an agent of Satan, and attacks you in your sleep.

Your health will go in the sewer, as will your marriage.

Cold as it seems, everybody involved is better off if the care is delegated to institutions which can provide 24-hr care and secure accommodation.

As noted in much of the discussion, many of the institutions are not that good at delivering what they should, so be careful in selecting the institution, but they're still better than well-meaning family members.

BTW, I have a photo taken around 1953, when I was 6 months old. In it are my great-grandmother (about 75), her first child (my grandmother), first grandchild (my mother) and first great-grandchild (yours truly).

All three of these women are dead, and all of them spent their last few years suffering from dementia.

Barring some kind of medical miracle in the next few years, I pretty much know what my fate will be. I've made it clear to my family that they can look after me if I'm only confused, but they have to institutionalize me if I get too far along.

Hope I die before I get old. Talkin' about my degeneration.

I've seen how low these places can sink in terms of hygiene and up-to-date facilities.

And I had to wonder where the vast fees were being spent. I heard a lot of yelling but no violence.

But then, how hard can a 90 year old hit you?

Unless they get a weapon somehow, they're more likely to injure themselves.

I worked in a nursing home fore 20 yrs. The Gov.gives these homes funding for staff but the money was never spent on staff. Instead they used it to remodel the office.

How many days out of a week these Homes work short of staff. Super-Bugs don't work short of staff.These Homes are becoming breeding grounds.

The door to the hospitals is always open the elderly are either coming or going.Infection Control should be parmount. Prisoners are treated better than the Eldertly

Personally I hope my end comes fast as I sure don't want to be one of these people who waste away lost and forgotten waiting for the inevitable to happen in some old folks home.

But I can only see things getting worse as the population ages, we continue to live longer, the family system erodes and personal/government debts continue to stay as high as they are.

Get out there and experience life while you can people. None of us gets out of here alive. It's not the number of breathes we take in life that counts. It's the number of times our life takes our breath away.

Anyone remember the story recently of the dying senior who murdered their elderly mother?

That should be a real wake up call to our society.

It shows what faith a dying person has in the ability of a nursing home to care for his parent.

The problem is there are a lot more deaths happening you don't hear about, the suicides.

The media seldom reports them and society doesn't want to talk about them but they are more wide spread than we think.

Right now our topic is violence by residents and yet last week another report of violence by staff on residents.

Fact is we have a very broken system that needs to be fixed.

Want to strike fear into an elderly person?

Mention a nursing home or long term care facility and watch their reaction.

They prefer death over it.

The Golden Girls may be the modern equivalent of Father Knows Best. The survivor types don't adapt so well it appears.

Since I might be willing but unable to beat up an elderly co-inmate, nor get jail time if I did, but good plan, Allan in Simcoe, I think I'll just save up my pills and hope I remember where I put them. Oh, to live a real dog's life and just get sent to the vet.

We shouldn't forget there are also many wonderful, dedicated, kind people working in elderly care. They are pushed beyond endurance these days and in my onlooker experience, seldom get a pat on the head from family, patients, or the system itself.

I am a firm supporter of euthanasia. Only for me and for anyone who chooses it for themselves. I have an early form of dementia and believe me when I can no longer remember who I am or who my children are - I - in my mind - am not living. Only existing.

I think I have the right to choose. I do not want to spend years in a nursing home and definately do not want my children coming to visit a loopy old bat who does not know them as that would only depress them even more. So Katie is not all wrong - maybe by the time it comes for her - she will be able to have the choice.

For peoples who never works in a nursing home Maybe you should go and help the nurses et care giver. I did work there for about six month. But I did two mistakes. first one got attach to the resident. second hoping they will get better.

I was working with peoples who ad dementia and other mental disease. But the worst thing happen to me went a was working there's was not the residents It was that there's family's didn't give a sh...t. that was hard.

I think that everybody can wish for dignity, and a peacefully death. But is seem that peoples doesn't want that on this post. I think the best is to force there's family's to take a list the responsibility to go see themes once a week.

You can not imagine how that calm themes down to see there family it help. Also I told my parent already no matter what I would keep them with me. I am not sending them there after what they did for me.

My dad was in a nursing home in for the last four years of his life - he was so scared of the staff in the home.

I would take him out on Saturdays; and his main concern while out was the scolding he would receive (from staff) if he stayed out past a certain time.

He also rejected the medications they forced on him to keep him quiet. And the food they served him...(yuk). Staff in nursing homes are not well trained to serve, they don't seem to care. I hope things change.

Comments posted so far:

"...demetia residents were kept drugged all day..."

"...having watched the way people are made to suffer when they are old, sick, disabled or dying..."

"...live out our final years in universal indignity.."

Has it occurred to anyone that if we treated our pets like we treat some of our sick and infirm elderly, we would face charges?

We have a humane option with our pets, but of course, it's not politically correct to talk about THAT. Indeed, we live in a sick society that forces indignity, suffering and pain on those who often cannot take matters into their own hands.

And yet we see fit to expend roughly $88,000 per year for the tender care of each of our "beloved prisoners" in the Federal Penal system. We really do live in a meesed up society...... I think I'll retire and go rob a bank......

Staffing is pathetic and funding is to blame!

Nursing homes don't have enough staff. Why? Not enough funding by the government.

Conditions are worse in nursing homes than they are in a prisons! Patients are lucky if they get a bath every week, they're forced fed and they don't get what they need because the home is alloted a certain amount of money and the staff NEEDS IT for salary. WHAT EVER HAPPENED TO VOLUNTEER WORK or PEOPLE WHO CARE ABOUT PEOPLE rather than MONEY!

Government says cut, cut, cut and that's wrong especially from our elders! Cut from the prison system for Christ sake. They broke the law and they get a full 3 meals a day plus full shower benefits. Mind you it's tough but our elders are living in worse conditions than that it's no wonder they're fighting.

The government needs to do a LOT more, and that means improve the funding, TODAY!

Katie seems to think that life is nothing more than a short trip in a sometimes not so pretty world.
When you are no longer a contributing member,we pull the plug.

Be careful what you wish for Katie,because your government also feels that way, and only time will tell what will happen to you when you are old.

I can only hope that you will come to know exactly what our seniors know.
Nobody cares,and what was the point to it all?

And another thing Katie.
The will to live is strong,even when we are old and feeble and I really wonder just how calmly you would actually "take your shot" when the end is near?

The wish & support for euthenasia does not come from the residents in a dementia ward of a LTCF. Instead, I have witnessed from personal experience, they have for most of their life an enormous desire to live, even in this unappreciated and unvalued state of life.

I think it is a 'sick' society that is promoting euthenasia for others.

Have we gone so far into a downward spiral in our society that we have forgotten the key word in humane and humanity is human?

Have we forgotten what being a human is?

We are so quick to bitch about what is wrong with our elderly, our children, our life styles,our jobs, etc.

Have we all forgotten that what is important in life, people?

Personally after having watched the way people are made to suffer when they are old, sick, disabled or dying, I would hope to either die quickly or if given the chance, end it myself.

There is no dignity in being old becuase no one cares about you.

Everyone forgets they still have feelings the same as the rest of us.

Everyone thinks nursing homes, long term care and hospitals are for the old and dying but before there was health coverage, when you had to pay a doctor or a hospital, FAMILIES looked after the sick, the old and the dying.

And do you no what?They received better care, they were happier and so were the families.

No one had to wonder if they were receiving proper care or being neglected.

Now we claim we are to busy.

Out of sight, out of mind mentality.

We should all hang our heads in shame as a society.

Funny how successive governments, federal and provincial are bragging of booming economies and unexpected windfall surplusses, yet violence in our seniors care facilities is thought to be the norm by so many.

That is what happens when government opt to create surplusses.

We certainly see it here in BC where for profit agencies that took over when public sector facilities were wiped out by government
edict.

Put profits ahead of service and guess who suffers.

Note to B Kelly, perhaps you can offer an intelligent alternative to the minimal levels of "socialized" health care we see in Canada.

Yes, I know it's trendy among some on the right to rant about the excessess of Tommy Douglas's efforts, but until you can recommend a system that'll provide equal anything to Canadians, you're missing the point.

Wealthy people are not being forced into "socialized" service facilities, but because government won't put more money into such services a great many others are and are suffering for it.

So don't blame the late Tommy Douglas because your current health minister, who is pushing toward a profit-based concept says everything is fine.

We have have a higher than the national average of seniors in our area.

One thing not mentioned in this article is the use of medication to control residents with agressive behaviour.

So residents are on so many meds that they have to go off them in a psyco geriatic unit. In many cases this has solved the aggressive behaviour. So is it the cornacoppia of meds thats cause the aggressiveness or the dementia ?

To Katie, Canada

You wrote..."It was you boomers that chose not to legalize euthanasia - now you expect us to look after you for decades while your minds go, your bodies decay".

"And spare me the you brought us into the world so we owe you - I didn't ask to be born so don't expect me to clean your dirty bottom and put up with your dementia".

Yikes Katie! You definitely have some real weird personal issues going on here to be this ugly.

Himmler would have been proud of you!

Your parents too...if they are still around!

Kudos to those who brought up euthanasia.

Conversations I've had with the elderly or some of the older boomers have led me to the conclusion that somewhere between 85 and 90% of people would prefer to die on their own terms over wasting away in a nursing home, and I agree wholeheartedly that anyone should have the right to die at the time of their choosing.

People seem to forget that the right to life, enshrined in the Charter, implies right to death.

I think as we approach the senior years of the huge boomer demographic, euthanasia will gain more public attention and support.

And yet we see fit to expend roughly $88,000 per year for the tender care of each of our "beloved prisoners" in the Federal Penal system.

We really do live in a messed up society...... I think I'll retire and go rob a bank......

I would caution that Katie and Matt don't speak for the young adults of this country with their NDP-style comments.

I can also point out several ways in which Holland is less civilized than Canada, and Katie, here's hoping that your kids treat you in the same way as you expect others to treat their parents.

I'm no euthanasia expert, but it seems to me that selfish adults want to use that route as a means of assuaging their guilt for not looking after their parents, while not exposing them to the dangers of nursing homes.

In my humble opinion, the solution is more complex than that, as MOST older folks would rather die a natural death, than be given the "sympathetic" equivalent of a lethal injection.

The notable exception are those who are in constant, unbearable pain, and not every old person is.

Wow Katie, maybe we should open some gas chambers to eliminate the inconvenient people!

I can't believe the CBC would post this kind of hate propaganda!!

Katie,

You are either a teenager, in which case your comments are entirely predictable (except most people abandon the "I didn't ask to be born" argument aroung the age of 12 or so), or you are a very self centered, selfish, immature adult who has been fortunate enough to have not suffered much of anything in your lifetime.

Either way I just hope it doesn't require the sight of a slowly dying loved to inject some humanity and compassion into your life.

B. Kelley hit the nail on the head.

This is the world of socialized health care.

It's free, for what it is.

Am I the only one that actually *presumes* life in nursing home would be awful?

Yes, the patients are going to be unpleasant to deal with - that's why they were sent there in the first place.

Yes, the staff is going to be unpleasant to deal with - the jobs they perform every day basically guarantee bad moods!

Growing old isn't like in the movies.

We can't all just move out to a country house with a full, well paid and well rested staff all to ourselves.

Unfortunately, we live in a society that places a premium on basic human dignity.

If dignity is what you're looking for, then you can fight to change society or you can pay for it like everyone else.

I have seen firsthand many times what Charlene Smith is talking about and I can tell you,it is gut wrenching.

Thank you Charlene.

The system is sick and it needs fixing now!

These seniors are forgotten, ignored,and treated like nothing more than a problem to be barely tolerated because somebody has to do it.

It is disgusting, and about the only way it can be changed, is more government involvment.

Hurry up and die is the attitude,even amoung the families who make little effort to help.

And one day,we all may be in the exact same situation.

Better we begin to pay more attention now and work at making it better before we get there.

And for the ones who stick a senior relative into a "home" and ignore them until they are gone, don't ever think it won't happen to you!

It can and it just might!

A 5-year-old throwing a tantrum is cute, an 85 year old is not so cute.

Changing a 5-month-old's diaper is tolerable - changing an 85-year-old's is not.

It was you boomers that chose not to legalize euthanasia - now you expect us to look after you for decades while your minds go, your bodies decay.

And spare me the you brought us into the world so we owe you - I didn't ask to be born so don't expect me to clean your dirty bottom and put up with your dementia.

And yes I know I will get that way some day - that's why I want euthanasia - I'm perfectly happy to take my shot and go quietly so I don't have to burden someone else with looking after me.

The caregiving role is being downgraded for women and commercialized instead.

We have a tax system that pressures all adults to be outside the home earning and care of the elderly and children is to be provided by strangers, at a high cost to the families and then they will ask for help so also subsidized by the taxpayer.

This move is nearly unstoppable since labour unions like it (they get more workers paying dues) and big business likes it (they get more employees with money to spend so they can sell more goods) and government likes it (they get more taxpayers).

The ones who don't benefit are the care-receivers, the elderly, the sick, the handicapped, the dying and the very young who if asked usually say they'd rather be with people who love them, but whose views are discounted.

The violence in nursing homes is a result of the frustration of residents some of whom hate being there, and sometimes the overwork and frustration of staff who are being stretched thin.

The problem really is that our tax system and social policy do not really value the care-receiver at all.

Except as a client to pay cash.

Nobody likes to be treated that way.

My mother is also in a nursing home dementia ward and has been involved in a couple of fights with other residents, one that ended in stitches.

She previously stayed at a different home where the residents were kept drugged all day to keep them quiet.

Hard to say which one is worse.

Years ago, when she was still in good health, she said she would rather be run over by a bus than end up in a nursing home.

It's hard to disagree.

Sadly, we don't live in a civilized country like Holland where she would have been allowed to die with dignity at a time of her own choosing, rather than be kept like an animal long after the death of her mind.

I think it is time to hear from the other side of the coin about the good points.

I have an uncle who has full dementia & full Alzheimers.

He needs more care than I am qualified for or have the time to give.

However since he is a WWII combat veteran having seen action in Europe with the RCAF during the war, Veterans Affairs steped in and got him into a special veterans only home a Sunnybrook Hospital here in Toronto.

There are only ten veterans in residence and the staff ratio is if I remember correctly one nurse to only three residents.

All the staff are specifically trained to deal with Alzheimers and dementia cases. He could not be in better hands for both the care he needs and the respect that war veterans are due.

I personally cannot imagine ever putting my parents in a nursing home, because that was not how I was raised to behave.

The nursing home situation is not going to improve significantly, so my advice is that parents should stop exhibiting selfish lifestyles (excess spending, unnecessary trips), spend more time with your kids and build up your own financial security, so that in the future, you and your kids can afford the home care you need to maintain your dignity... and your health.

I have spent the last 20 minutes reading the thread from this topic and I have to say despite everyone taking exception to each others comments, I think you are all right.

Fifteen years of working in long term care means I have seen it all.

Residents in the "bad old days" were restrained to keep them from walking and falling, heavy work load and time constraints always mean having to pick and choose who gets more attention for care, some residents don't get care because it may take 2-3 staff to perform care and there just aren't enough hands available at the time, when I worked on the dementia unit there wasn't one day in 3 years that I didn't come home bruised-bitten-kicked-spit on and sworn at.

That was part of the job and according to the management staff had more to do with "the approach" of the caregiver than the volatility of the resident.

The one thing that I am proud to say that I never saw was a staff member strike or harm a resident- and I think that is a credit to my former coworkers considering the workplace.

Nursing home abuse is a huge problem and causes run deep.

Tax cuts, understaffed workplaces, lack of education for families of seniors in homes, over & under medication, a blind eye to inappropriate placement, dumping family members, and perhaps poor education for up and coming frontline workers, all of it plagues this element of health care.

Those who wail about how seniors in our society are being cared for should be scared because it shows no sign of changing anytime soon.

A doctor visiting our ward commented that it was "like putting 6 adults in charge of 50 toddlers- no sane organization would ever do that!"

But yet, there it is in plain sight everyday.

I want to end this on a good note though.

Problems aside, most of us still love your loved ones.

We turn them, wash them, rub lotion on sore backs, play music for them when they are lonely, sit with them while they are dying.

We need to fix many things, but it isn't all bad.

Violence is unfortunately a part of dementia.

The poor training and staffing shortage of LTCFs dealing with dementia is the root problem.

For three years I have had the unfortunate experience of watching daily over the care given to my spouse in a 'good' LTCF.

Many times I have seen aides attacked by a resident and residents fighting each other.

I wrote a letter to the regional director responsible for care in the province, with copies to the facility nurse, & the facility CEO after my wife had been punched in the face by a much bigger male for intruding his space.

I got a letter back saying that I should deal with the facilities director of care.

The person providing the money washed her hands of the problem.

This was a ridulous response because the facility is not given the funds to hire adequate staff to control the situation.

Unfortunately no one is held accountable in our society.

Perhaps if the law allowed us to sue government individuals over their neglect, then we might see changes.

Isn't it funny that we boomers have few qualms about letting our children extend adolescence as long as possible, living at home with Mom and Dad and deferring any real responsibility until well into their 20s and 30s, and we have consigned our elders to these warehouses that we are often too busy or disinclined to visit for more than an hour or two on Sunday afternoons.

I generalize, of course, but perhaps we as a society might want to look at shoving the offspring out of the nest to stand on their own two feet and letting our parents return to our nests where we can care for them with a measure of love and compassion.

And perhaps one less SUV in the driveway or one less vacation to Mexico could help pay for the in-home support care they would need. Just a thought…

Charlene Smith brings up a good point. As the boomers are rapidly approaching their elder years, soon there will be more seniors requiring care than there will be people to care for them, let alone qualified nurses.

The current nursing home situation will seem like paradise compared to 20-30 years from now.

My advice to boomers: start being VERY nice to your kids.

Charlene Smith.
You make some really good points. And they are points that we all should be aware of because the issue of caring for our seniors is just going to continue to grow as our population is rapidly ageing.

We do, as a society, tend to want to just put the kids in daycare and put the grandparents in a senior's home and be done with them.

We're going to have to decide - and sooner than later, if we want to pay the bills or do the work, because it will have to be one or the other.

Perhaps the notion of federal budget surplusses is just the national retirement fund that most seniors spent their lives contributing to and now its time to give them the care they deserve.

I'm with some of the other posters here - I'll hope for the heart attack that drops me dead on the spot rather than have to suffer at the hands of an under-funded senior and palliative care system.

It is a combination of factors:

nursing homes and the elderly residents are not viewed favourably and are not visited frequently enough by friends and relatives;

many health care professionals do not want to work in nursing homes;

the number of residents who are cognitively impaired are increasing as people are living longer;

younger residents who are healthy may present a danger to the elderly residents;

the nursing home must find a suitable place for the violent resident and most importantly we are dealing here with a vulnerable population.

My mother-in-law is in a nursing home on Vancouver island.

She cannot be cared for at home anymore, but we kept her there as long as possible.

Let me tell you, it is not a pretty place and the level of care is borderline.

The staffing issues have much to do with it but we have also seen a lot of just plain crabby and not very pleasant nurses. To us OR the patients.

Right now, we are trying to get her into a better and newer facility, but the waiting lists are long.

I blame a lot of the issues on the government because they really don't give a damn.

They downloaded this problem to the private sector and washed their greedy little hands of it all.

And we let them do it.
Now, our seniors are paying the price for it.

Not everyone can afford a high priced private hospital or a condo in an assited living facility.

But nobody cares including many of the patients families.
Some patients never even have visitors except on a rare occasion.

Very sad indeed.
If you have family in one of these private hospitals, because that's what they are,s tart putting some pressure on the government.

They did it and they are the only ones that can fix it.

Welcome to the world of socialized health care.

We Canadians can proudly hold our heads high and brag to the world that we have assured our citizens equal and universal access to substandard medical care, outrageous wait times and now, finally, the opportunity to live out our final years in universal danger and indignity.

It may not be pretty, but at least we all suffer equally and, after all, isn't equality the most important consideration.

Thank you Tommy Douglas, wherever you are.

I don't know wether to laugh, cry or just go outside and puke!!

You have spent the last 20 years doing nothing but whining about supposed high taxes, bleating for tax cuts and now you want to turn our seniors into prisoners. What an amazing group of selfserving miserly bunch of spoiled children we have become!

It takes money to run our institutions, day cares, hospitals, schools, and nurnsing homes. It really doesn't take a genious to figure that one out. The money has to come from our taxes.

If you insist on tax cuts than you are starving these institutions of operating expenses. The only choice for them is to cut back on staffing or supplies or both.

In the case of private institutions they do both deliberately to provide generous bonuses for the executives of such.

If you want better care for our parents and grandparents the choice is simple, stop supporting organisations like the Fraser Institute, CD Howe institute, Conservative party, Boards of Trade, etc. The only interest they have is NOT to pay their own way.

B.C.Bear, to call No Name a liar is to disregard what is reported in the media also.

I have witnessed this in a hospital in Ontario as well as I remember a case not too long ago in another Ontario hospital.

Because I have spent alot of time in the hospital due to my own health I have witnessed elderly neglect and abuse on many occassions.

It was the reason my husband and father-in-law CHOSE to die at home.

The fact remains until health care wasn't paid for people were looked after at HOME.

Now we as a society do with the elderly the same as with our kids, expect someone else to take care of our responsibilities rather than step up to the plate and look after them ourselves.

Ever watched a senior beg and cry to go home?

Ever watched a senior ask when is their family coming to see them and then find out they never do?

Where is the dignity of being old?

I am a RN who did work for a number of years in the system. What "no name" says - is the truth. She is not a liar.

Although I will say - it does not happen in all nursing homes but a few rouge ones. I have been witness to what she states! Why do think you can't get any decent staff to work in some of these places?

As the spouse of someone who works in a senior care facility, I have some knowledge of what goes on in these places.

Their are numerous "real" problems associated with this part of our health care system that most don't care to hear about, some of them are as follows;

- lack of qualified care aids / lack of funding
- welfare recipients taken off the dole and being pushed through the training and then accepted as "Care Aids"
- governments quick to privatize the facilities and then accept sub-standard performance because of what I've already stated

- the public has no idea on the levels of care provided as seniors in their various states of dementia must be treated differently due to the degree of dementia
- the main duties of an over-worked care aid is to be constantly changing diapers and cleaning the excretement off of these poor souls

- then after cleaning these folks, the care aids are required to prepare & cook the meals, do the laundry, clean the floors, bath the residents, etc.
- as previously submitted by "NONAME" from Ontario, you don't know what your're talking about. In other words, you're a liar!

- Generally, the problem of violence is rare and not as wide spread as claimed. Dementia is a terrible, terrible condition of which there is no cure. It changes these folks forever and the only outlook is their condition only gets worse and worse. The cure in all cases is death

- I applaud the topic choosers but am afraid no one really wants to hear the truth about our long term care facilities and the level of care being provided. I pray to God that I never have to enter one of these places, please give me a heart attack that I might pass quickly!

Untill recently I was a Licensed Practial Nurse in the province of Alberta. My present age is 50 years old. The experience in the Canadian system I have had is less than optimal, which is the reason I have left the profession and health care.

Yes, when you work with elderly there is a certain risk of being physically abused. A lot of the care given to the elderly is done by personal care aids, who are over worked in the tasks given to complete in the time given (moring routines, getting people to meal times, etc).

Family visiting clients in care facilities seldom realize how a "loved one" now is acting out and the character change that has developed as a result of a stroke, heart attack, etc.

To sum it up, you have people at the top of the health care feild who are looking to trim the dollar and run financially "smoother and efficiently". With the direction that our society has taken in the care of the elderly it compounds the stress and hinders the ability of the health care workers to cope and operate efficiently within their scope of practice.

I found it hard to work with others in the health care feild because most did not have the life experience to work with the elderly.

When working with the elderly you quite often work with some people who are not cognatively capable of understanding tasks they need to do for the day (simple tasks like brushing your hair, eating, etc.).

This all boils down to two things:(1)lack of help to complete the tasks of care and (2)lack of properly trained staff.

Governments and families of loved ones in care must realize that cutting back and streamlining the care system has it's costs. Many years ago the immediate family used to care for their loved ones until they passed on.

Today they put them into a facility and seldom visit them, leaving the state to make the decisions about their care.

How many people have actually been in these long term facilities and actually spent alot of time there?

I have with a number of relatives and I can tell you it isn't pretty.

Patients are not fed, left in soiled diapers and bedding.

They are NOT turned when they should be if they have motility problems.

THEY ARE TREATED AS MINDLESS BABIES and we wonder what is wrong with the elderly?

Have you ever witnessed them being ignored or punished for speaking up?

I have.This is what the elderly have to put up with when they enter these kinds of facilities.

Has anyone ever wondered why being told they are going to be placed in one, invokes tears, begging and violence?

As baby boomers, we should all be concerned because this is OUR FUTURE.

Whatever we do we cannot send the assaulters to prison.

The word would spread and these old folks would begin beating the **** out of each other trying to get sent to jail and the far better accommodation, treatment and supervision available there.

Thank you for your storey on violence in care homes, I work in a care home and see this violence DAILY and see management doing nothing to make the residents or staff safe, as reported on your program it seems to an accepted practice and most of the nursing staff feel helpless to stop this or change the way aggressive residents are constantly abusing other frail residents and staff.

Hopefully if enough light is shined on this cross country problem, politician will open their pocket book and provide safe places for these aggressive residents to live in properly staffed and controlled setting, leaving the last days of the other residents to be lived in a secure and peacefull setting that they deserve to have.

Thank you again and I hope you will do more investigation and reporting on this problem..

My husband is a resident of a Wpg home and it is a frustrating experience.

The residents are given behavior drugs to make the job easier for the staff. He has anger problems when he is being forced to do something he doesn't want to do. If they would wait 5 minutes and try again he cooperates. But, they give him more pills. He has lost 40 pounds in 3 months and sleeps most of the time.

I would take him home, gladly, but he has incontinence problems as well as constantly walking and staying awake at night.

Dementia is a terrible disease, robbing them of all dignity. They only have their pride left and it is being compromised by too much medication.

My Grandmother was tackled to the ground by another resident at St. Joes Lifecare in Brantford who proceeded to try to take the clothes off her back.

A doctor came in to check on the other resident but he wasn't asked to examine my Grandmother. She took a major turn for the worse and now often no longer knows who we are.

When the incident was reported to us they refused to tell us who had attacked her and just downplayed her attack as no big deal. When we were finally able to confirm her attacker's identity off the record from a staff member we had made friends with it turned out to be the woman with whom she shared a bathroom that gave her unsupervised access to my Grandmother's room.

To make matters worse we had to fight through various letters for weeks to have the woman moved. The home never officially admitted the identity of her attacker but they eventually moved her to another room in the same ward.

My Grandmother's attacker recieved one on one nursing care following the attack for a few weeks but the doctor didn't even look my Grandmother over. On the same ward a staff member was off work this summer due to an attack by a resident and the woman who attacked my Grandmother also attacked a man there.

Another man who had attacked a few people was removed from the ward. Staff in long term care homes seem to like to congregate at their nursing desk and chat when not performing something required like meals or a bath.

Some of the registered nurses spend the better part of their day doing paperwork in an office away from things. The reality is there is a lack of supervision going on more than a lack of staffing.

In the end the residents don't get the attention they need to fix problems and calm tempers before things explode.

You know it has to be linked to all those drugs that the elderly are addicted to! Blood pressure pills, stool softeners, anit-arthritics all of these must lead to these violent tendencies in the elderly!

The link between drugs and violence seems quite clear to me! If these elderly folks are taking these drugs - then we should throw them in jail before they can do violence to others!

Get tough Stevie!

Seriously though - this is a symptom expressing itself of something deeper. No question.

Since I've worked in a nursing home for a number of years the greatest and most debilitating affect for dealing with violent out of control residents is the staffing shortage.

With staffing cutbacks at an all time high in Ontario nursing homes there is simply not enough staff to safely and humanely care for the needs of just a normal frail elderly person, much less monitor a high risk violent resident.

And all the rules and new legislation put in place to combat this problem are just another insane joke on the jobsite if you don't have the staff to back it up.

Talk is cheap folks! And for the past few years that's all I've heard regarding these issues in the nursing home environment.

What is needed is skilled, committed and motivated manpower. Without this, all that's going to happen is a bad situation that will continue to spiral out of control until more people get hurt, residents and staff alike.

Why don't you go into a nursing home for a visit at 6 a.m. in the morning.

I use to work in a nursing home and the staff is overworked and stressed out. I've seen dementia patients be hit, kicked, pinched, hang from a lifting device to shit in a garbage can, never have their teeth brushed or hair combed, never bathed.

It's disgusting and I got out of there. If you want a true story investigate a nursing home for a 24 hour period. They get strapped down and over medicated, it's awful.

Man, you break your back your whole life just to try to retire a couple of years before you're too timid to leave the house only to end up in the mental senior citizen's equivalent of "fight club".

Dropping out of the race to that twisted end looks more and more appealing every day.

I have had an elderly relative injured by a fellow wheel-chaired “geriinmate”.

It is time to “Get Tough on Geriatric Crime”. The Harperites should include minimal (half the gericriminal’s remaining life expectancy) in the coming Omnibus Crime bill!

Or perhaps direct more resources to support and supervision services for this fastest growing segment of our population.

Ken Le Clair from Queens university MUST be Canadian. Who else would stand up and claim, as a professor of geriatric psychiatry, that the very first thing we should do is gather together the provinces, territories and the feds and have a big summit involving ministers, their staff, various experts and others in the field. Yeah - that ought to run the tax payer a couple million.

Frankly I was a little surprised to hear this, although having had some experience with seniors I am aware that violent behaviour isn't exactly rare. Just that for it to become an issue of this magnitude is surprising.

Perhaps more research into causes and treatments along with best practices to manage these situations is in order. Its not as though this is a "new" topic. Surely there must be expertise available out there.

Maybe the Government could bring in laws to get tough on seniors,put them in the big house where they deserve to be.

The police should reopen they investigation into those recent attacks by youth on the elderly,maybe the elderly went looking for a fight?

Of course they are dangerous. We all know of roving gangs of blue hairs - car jacking, mugging

How about tasers? JUST KIDDING

What is needed is an examination of procedures. As people live longer and more folks (sadly) end up in volatile-dementia states we need to re-think how we handle the elderly. The old model of nursing home care is insufficient.

That issue should not be conflated with the plain old jerks like the one who attacked Belva. Assault is assault. If it was on the street it would have been punished (well maybe, this is Canada). I don't care if you are 80 (or 90), if you are competent to stand trial for assault you should. Simple as that.