Taking part in academic research empowers residents with dementia and 'gives them a sense of purpose'

The role of dementia research and how it is borne out in reality can be a contentious issue, with some experts believing that it does little to benefit people currently living with dementia. But participating in projects can actually enhance the wellbeing of care home residents.

Professor Mary Marshall, a senior consultant with HammondCare, writes and lectures in dementia care and is dubious of exactly how effective dementia research is at present.

Expressing the issues she has around the topic at the UK Dementia Congress in November, she told congress attendees that she is “a bit depressed about it,” adding: “I’ve become really unhappy about the rhetoric of evidence-based and the reality of expediency.

“There’s got to be more than research, there’s got to be a campaign or something as well.”

Yet there are ongoing partnerships between care homes and academic institutions where those affected by dementia are directly involved in research and contribute by providing first-hand evidence and experiences.

These partnerships provide a wealth of benefits for residents and care teams alike. Getting involved in research can provide additional stimulation for residents as they take part in new activities and talk to new people.

It also gives residents a sense of purpose and self-worth, helping them to feel like they are contributing to their future as well as the next generation, while staff gain additional training and an increase in job satisfaction, thereby creating an encouraging atmosphere of excellence and improvement.

‘Their experiences are what really matters’

The University of Worcester’s Association of Dementia Studies (ADS) carries out research to improve the lives of those with dementia by involving people with dementia, care workers and families directly in their projects.

Isabelle Latham, a PhD student and senior lecturer at ADS, explained: “Their experiences are what really matters when we wish to discover what affects people’s experiences, quality of life and care in care settings.”

Despite complex and in-depth ethical processes, ADS makes every effort to involve people living with advanced dementia, particularly if they are unable to be involved in more conventional research projects.

Ms Latham added: “We do this because it is important that their perspective is also considered in any findings.

“[Previous projects] have used observations of people’s daily lives and care experience to try and capture their point of view even though a person may have limited verbal communication.”

‘Outsiders’ help care home staff reflect better

While contributing to research, care home staff reap the benefits of participating in often ground-breaking projects, allowing them to provide better care for residents living with dementia.

Ms Latham said: “In our experience, care homes, staff, families and people living in care homes are very positive about the impact of taking part in research, reflecting that it can feel empowering to be able to share experiences and opinions with others and know it may make a difference in the future.

“They often report that it increases their reflective abilities about the care they provide and that having ‘outside’ researchers coming into the home or discussing an aspect of care can help them think about changes they can make.”

Care homes, researchers and families can find information about ongoing and upcoming projects via Enabling Research In Care Homes (ENRICH), a National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) toolkit which provides information and networks for those involved or who wish to be involved in research.

The Orders of St John Care Trust (OSJCT) has been part of the ENRICH Research Ready Care Homes Network for three years. The network brings together care home staff, residents and researchers to facilitate the design and delivery of research, with the hope of improving the quality of life for residents.

Victoria Elliot, principal care consultant for OSJCT, said the group became part of the network because they are passionate about research and helping their residents and thought it would be a “positive experience” for them.

While the research they are involved in doesn’t always directly impact residents’ lives, it certainly enhances their general well-being.

‘For the greater good’

Ms Elliot explained: “They feel like they’re helping someone else, future generations, and it gives them a sense of purpose.

“They know that they’re doing some good that will benefit people in the future. They’re doing it for the greater good.”

She also noted that participating in research projects helps to counteract negative press that the social care sector often receives by improving staff morale.

She added: “They’re proud of the work they do and being involved in the research helps to reinforce this pride.”

Anna Hicks, a roaming home manager for OSJCT, took part in a five-year programme, WHELD (Improving Wellbeing for Health for People with Dementia), which assessed the most effective therapies to reduce the prescription of antipsychotic drugs and improve mental health and quality of life for people with dementia.

Taking part in this research not only benefitted staff and residents, but also inspired her to initiate new projects and innovations in the home to help those living with dementia.

She told ENRICH: “It was so successful that I started a dementia café, a knock-on benefit from the project. I also developed a ‘getting to know you’ process where every single member of staff now spends 10 to 15 minutes, once a week with a different resident – that includes the cooks, domestics and me.

“I felt my staff got a lot out of it – because now they understand much more about dementia and look at residents’ reactions in a different light.”

‘As academics, keep shouting’

Despite the positive outcomes for care homes collaborating with academic institutions, there remains the issue of disseminating findings and spreading awareness of the results to other care homes which have not participated in research.

This is an important issue at the Association for Dementia Studies because they “aim to make a difference to the lives of people living with dementia and their carers.”

Ms Latham explained: “We ensure that our research reports are available to the public via our website, we run free events to share the findings from our different projects and we integrate our latest evidence from research into the teaching and education programmes we offer.

“However, care homes, their staff and visitors are very busy and as such, I think we always need to work hard to make sure research findings are easy and simple to find out about and apply to practice.”

Dave Bell, an Admiral Nurse who works for Admiral Nursing Direct, the national dementia helpline, highlighted the importance of spreading awareness of dementia research.

He said: “People do want to be involved in research. We get questions: ‘How can I get into a drugs trial?’ or something like that.

“Evidence-based for us as nurses is really important but it often gets presented at conferences and we say ‘oh that’s interesting’ and then we carry on doing what we’re doing.

“So keep shouting, as academics, keep shouting because it’s really important to get through to us as nurses and other practitioners.”

SOURCE: carehome.co.uk, Charley Walker

'NHS must cut beds for better care' - Chief Nurse

THE NHS should spend more money looking after patients in their own homes instead of paying for hospital beds, the country's chief nursing officer warns today.

Jane Cummings, chief nursing officer at NHS England, said patients were being denied care at home because too much cash was devoted to paying for "old and expensive buildings".

Writing in The Daily Telegraph, she said the absence of adequate home care was trapping people in extended hospital stays which made them more ill.

She also called on health bosses to use a round of regional reorganisations to shake up "outdated" care methods and prevent patients "falling into the cracks" between different parts of the system.

She acknowledged, however, that refocusing the health service would be "controversial". The NHS is battling record levels of bed-blocking in hospitals due to the crisis in elderly care, which regulators have said has reached a "tipping point" because of the closure of residential homes and shortage of domestic carers.

Delays in the transfer of care are estimated to cost the health service around £900 million a year, with the cost of keeping an elderly person in hospital for a week about £3,000.

"With more care provided at home, the NHS can spend more cash on patients rather than maintaining old and expensive buildings," she said.

"More people can be better looked after with care personalised to their needs," she added.

On a local level, she said, the NHS "wants to invest in home-based care, but it struggles because resources are currently tied up in hospital beds".

Hospitals and other providers in England overspent by at least £2.45 billion in the last financial year, prompting the NHS to divide the country into 44 areas, ordering local managers and councils to come up with restructuring plans to improve efficiency.

A number of the schemes, called "Sustainability and Transformation Plans", have been criticised as heralding closures of A&E units and cuts to hospital beds.

But Prof Cummings said the restructurings provide a chance to make services smarter.

"As life expectancy increases, so do the ailments of old age and there are now more people with chronic conditions like heart failure and arthritis," she said.

"There are also big opportunities to improve care by making commonsense changes to how the NHS historically works, improvements that matter like making it easier to see a GP, speeding up cancer diagnosis and offering help faster to people with mental ill health."

Other commentators, however, have noted that the crisis in social careand the resulting bed blocking will only be solved if a significant chunk of the NHS budget, which is around £126 billion, is transferred to the £17 billion social care pot, which is administered by local authorities.

The chief nursing officer said that, as well as enabling more patients to be treated at home, restructuring should embrace smaller numbers of specialist centres, where appropriately trained staff are "available round the clock".

She cited stroke services in London, where the number of stroke wards was controversially reduced in favour of a small handful of "hyper-acute" units, which the NHS claims has saved the lives of 100 patients a year.

Proposals for each part of the country have now been made and are being scrutinised by NHS executives. They involve a £30 million scheme in Surrey to take pressure off hospitals by giving people more access to GPs. In south-east London, plans involve a scheme for 16,000 extra radiotherapy appointments and 4,600 more chemotherapy treatments a year from early 2017.

"While there will always be debate about how much money the nation invests in the NHS and social care, that does not change our responsibility to patients, which is to squeeze the maximum value from every penny available," said Prof Cummings.

The head of the King's Fund think tank, Prof Chris Ham, said treatment at home was the "right thing to do" but needed greater overall spending.

"It's been part of the conventional wisdom in the NHS for some time now," he said. "But it will need investment outside hospital services - GPs, social care, district nurses - before you can realistically cut back on hospital beds.

"At the moment we know hospitals are running very hot at capacity and over capacity and the only way we can help that is to stop people turning up.

"That requires money on staff. [Now] it's all going on deficit reduction."

SOURCE: Telegraph, Henry Bodkin

Eight minute target for life or death ambulance calls is relaxed: Report also urges services to hire more call handlers to advise patients over the phone

The eight-minute target for ambulances to reach life-threatening emergencies is being relaxed in a trial that simply lets paramedics arrive as quickly as they can.

It means patients having heart attacks, strokes or seizures will not be guaranteed an ambulance within eight minutes.

Amid a record number of 999 calls and a severe shortage of paramedics, a report also urges ambulance services to hire more call-centre handlers to advise more patients over the phone, rather than dispatching emergency vehicles.

The eight-minute target for ambulances to reach life-threatening emergencies is being relaxed in a trial that simply lets paramedics arrive as quickly as they can.

The response time trial is under way in three of the country's ten ambulance services – South West, West Midlands and Yorkshire, which serve a total of 16million patients – and could be extended nationally. But most of the public are unaware of it and it has only been highlighted today in a report by the National Audit Office.

It was gradually introduced in the three regions last year with no announcements, fuelling concerns that the public have been deliberately kept in the dark.

The report reveals that more than 10.7million calls were made to ambulance services in 2015/16, a 30 per cent rise in four years.

On top of this, ambulance services are facing a recruitment crisis, with as many as one in ten paramedic roles vacant.

This is having a severe impact on ambulance response times, and many severely ill patients have been left waiting more than an hour for an ambulance to arrive. The most serious calls – including cardiac arrests, breathing difficulties, heart attacks or strokes – are meant to get an ambulance within eight minutes.

In the trial, this is relaxed for the slightly less critical cases – known as Red 2 – which include heart attacks, strokes and seizures. These have been reclassified as Amber cases and there is no fixed time limit – paramedics are urged to respond as quickly as they can.

All Red 1 calls are sent an ambulance in eight minutes, including cardiac arrests – in which the heart stops, or for people who are struggling to breathe.

The trial will be assessed in spring and if deemed a success, will be introduced nationally. The report warns the eight-minute target encourages 999 operators to send 'multiple' ambulances or response cars to the same emergency, just to 'stop the clock'.

Amid a record number of 999 calls and a severe shortage of paramedics, a report also urges ambulance services to hire more call-centre handlers (stock image)

Ambulance services are fined if paramedics fail to reach 75 per cent of the most serious calls within eight minutes.

On average, around a quarter of ambulances are 'stood down' before they reach the scene because another crew has already arrived.

The report says it would be better to dispatch one ambulance in 15 minutes, for example, leaving other crews free to respond to the most serious cases.

But Lib Dem leader Tim Farron said: 'How can the NHS trial this without patient knowledge? When people call an ambulance they expect it to come quickly.

'How can they downgrade a heart attack to an amber call? It's life and death.'

Only one of the ten ambulance trusts meets the response-time target of reaching 75 per cent of serious calls in eight minutes, the report shows.

It also highlights how ambulances are increasingly held up in queues outside A&E units that are too busy to accept patients.

Last year, ambulance services lost a total of 500,000 hours waiting outside A&E instead of responding to other emergencies. 

Professor Keith Willett, NHS England's Medical Director for Acute Care, said: 'The ambulance service is facing significant pressures partly because too many ambulances are dispatched to simply hit targets rather than attend to those patients most in need – with 25 per cent of dispatched blue light vehicles being stood down before they reach the scene.

'That is why we're carefully testing a change to the way in which ambulance services can respond. 

'It's an idea that has come from doctors and paramedics, giving them much more control to do the best thing for patients. 

'These trials are designed to make sure ambulances focus on the right priority – getting to the most urgent patients in the quickest possible time, and improving the service to all patients who dial 999.

'All ambulance and A&E staff are working hard to keep handover delays to a minimum, with a view to eliminating them altogether. 

'These delays have many contributory causes, and often reflect pressure on beds within the hospital as a whole and a system that is struggling to discharge patients to community settings.' 

SOURCE: Sophie Borland, Daily Mail

Care home advice is top of callers' Christmas wish list

During the winter, the charity witnessed a significant increase in calls to its national advice line from older people and their families - with residential care help being the top reason for calling.

12 per cent rise in calls from older people

The calls peaked during the Christmas holidays when people get together with older relatives.

Some 54,000 people phoned Age UK last winter - an eight per cent rise in calls from 2015.

The majority of the calls (nearly 37,000) came from older people themselves – amounting to a 12 per cent rise in calls, when compared to 2015.

32 per cent rise in calls from adult children

Age UK also saw a 32 per cent rise in calls to the advice line from adult children over Christmas 2016 compared to the year before.

Age UK stated: “For many, Christmas is a time for visiting older family members, which leads to an increase in calls.

"People often notice a big difference in the health or circumstances in an older relative if they haven't seen them for a while which can lead to concern.”

Age UK's advice line is a free helpline offering support for older people 365 days a year. Last winter the charity answered calls from people needing advice about paying for care, care assessments, hospital discharge and benefits checks.

The charity said its level 2 advisors, who are skilled in handling longer, complex enquiries, most frequently answer questions on residential care, paying for nursing care, and arranging care assessments.”

The top five reasons people called the Age UK advice line over winter were:

1. Residential care

2. Health and disability

3. Legal advice

4. Non-residential care

5. Money benefits

SOURCE: Angeline Albert, carehome.co.uk

Two wealthy brothers who ran a dangerous and dirty care home with rooms like "prison cells" where residents were not bathed or showered for a month have been fined £80,800.

Amjad and Amer Latif admitted 14 offences after a snap inspection horrified investigators and led to a court order to close the home, Mossley Manor, in Mossley Hill, south Liverpool.

They were called in by a woman who took her mother out of the home just two hours after first arriving.

Inspectors from watchdog the Care Quality Commission (CQC) gagged at the overpowering stench inside the dirty and dangerous home, which charged a minimum of £1,000 per month to look after each of its 43 residents, many funded by the taxpayer.

It is not known how long residents had been forced to live in such squalor.

The brothers admitted at an earlier hearing failing to notify authorities about the deaths of 10 residents at the home, failing to inform the CQC of three serious incidents, failing to provide safe care and exposing residents to "significant" risk and harm.

Amjad, 56, who lives in a £1 million house in Bowdon, Cheshire, and Amer, 47, who lives in a £1.2 million gated house on a tree-lined street in Woolton, south Liverpool, pleaded guilty to 14 charges in all, between April 14 and June 2015.

The home and grounds are now on the market for £2.7 million.

Only Amjad appeared in the dock for sentencing at Liverpool Magistrates' Court, as a representative of the partnership running the business.

District Judge Andrew Shaw shook his head as Jenny Ashworth, prosecuting, outlined the catalogue of offences, saying the home was "depressing, unhygienic and unsafe".

Before passing sentence, Judge Shaw said he had read the "harrowing" prosecution case papers.

He said: "It was a distressing experience and emotionally I felt both a degree of incredulity and anger that the residents in this home were so betrayed by the individuals paid to look after them and deriving a considerable amount for doing so.

"This was a lack-of-care home, not a care home."

Earlier, Miss Ashworth told the court: "The defendants received significant income from the operation of this care home, £1,000 per month per service user.

"The defendants were regularly on site, the two brothers had an office at the location.

"The defendants must have seen the state of the premises and should have acted.

"The dignity of these elderly and vulnerable service users was compromised."

Conditions only came to light as a result of the CQC inspections in May and June 2015.

Inspectors found there was no hot water, toilets were dirty and there was a risk of infections spreading.

There was not enough staff, they were not trained and some who were employed had criminal convictions while looking after elderly and vulnerable residents.

The premises were badly maintained and unsafe, some windows did not close properly and there were fire hazards, with residents smoking in the home, with cigarette butts and ash on furniture and carpets.

Residents were also put to bed at 6pm as there were no activities, nothing for them to do and TVs did not work.

Inspectors also reported an "overpowering" smell of stale urine and body odour and some residents, some incontinent, had not been given a bath or shower for at least four weeks.

A member of staff told inspectors: "Some of the bedrooms are like a prison cell."

All 43 residents were rehoused by the local authority.

It is only the fourth prosecution by the CQC since the watchdog was given new powers to prosecute care home owners.

Kevin Donnelly, defending, said the brothers were educated men with professional qualifications and other business interests.

They inherited the home from their late father in 2002, and decided to take over running the business, an "unwise" decision as they had no idea what running a care home entailed, complacency set in and they failed to take sufficient interest in the enterprise.

Mr Donnelly said the findings of the inspectors came as a "great shock" and they were genuinely remorseful.

"They don't intend to operate in this sector again," he added.

Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt welcomed the prosecution but the Government is under pressure to provide more cash as councils struggle to pay fees for residential care and homes close as they are making losses.

Barbara Keeley MP, Labour's shadow minister for social care and mental health, said: "There are wider questions for the Government on just how this level of neglectful care was allowed to develop unchecked.

"The Government must ensure our care system does not allow standards to fall to the level found at this care home, leaving residents exposed to harm and neglect."

The Latifs were also ordered to pay £1,509.72p in court costs.

SOURCE: Belfast Telegraph

Frank's Law: Scottish Conservatives push for dementia care law change

The party confirmed it would launch a Holyrood member's bill in the summer to introduce the so-called Frank's Law.

It is named after former Dundee United footballer Frank Kopel, who died in 2014 after being diagnosed with dementia.

Mr Kopel's wife, Amanda, has been campaigning for a change in the law.

People under the age of 65 who require personal care have to pay for it - however, it is free to those over the age of 65 who are assessed by their local authority as needing it.

Degenerative conditions

Mrs Kopel has been calling for the rules to be changed in order for people under 65 who are diagnosed with dementia and other degenerative conditions such as motor neurone disease, Parkinson's, multiple sclerosis and cancer to also be eligible for free care.

Her husband, who started his career at Manchester United before playing more than 280 games for Dundee United, was 59 when he was diagnosed with vascular dementia and Alzheimer's in 2008.

His family had to pay out about £300 a week on personal care towards the end of his life - with Mr Kopel eligible for just 19 days of free care before his death at the age of 65 in April 2014.

Amanda Kopel was given a standing ovation after an emotional speech to the Conservative conference

Mrs Kopel was given a standing ovation at the Scottish Conservative conference in Glasgow after telling delegates there was "blatant discrimination" against dementia patients aged under 65.

The Conservatives say there is a majority of MSPs at Holyrood who are in favour of changing the law - with only the SNP currently opposed.

Conservative mental health spokesman Miles Briggs told the conference that he had met with the Scottish Parliament authorities and would table the bill in the coming months.

Mr Briggs had previously announced he would act if the Scottish government did not.

'Vital care'

He said: "It is a shocking indictment on this SNP government's record on health that terminally ill patients under the age of 65 are being charged for the basic help they need.

"Many patients and families have told me, when you're on your deathbed, worrying about where you'll find money to pay for vital care is the last thing you want to go through.

"That's why Frank's Law is needed today, it was needed yesterday, and I will not let the SNP kick this into the long grass."

A spokeswoman for Health Secretary Shona Robison said the Conservatives "know full well that the Scottish government is already committed to examining the extension of free personal and nursing care to those under 65 while protecting existing provision.

"And we have acted to expand current provision. People with terminal illnesses already qualify for free care, and we have invested £6m to increase the income threshold at which someone becomes liable for charges.

"From 1 April 2017, armed forces veterans will have income from war pensions disregarded from social care financial assessments. And we are transforming the way we treat dementia so more people have their independence for longer and working towards greater supported self-management at home."

SOURCE: BBC News, Scotland Politics

Families demand more care for loved ones in nursing homes

 “There’s a desperate, desperate need for more hours of care for people in nursing homes,” said Ann Dube, who has an 85-year-mother with Alzheimer’s living in a Windsor home, where workers are so overloaded they don’t have time — five minutes — to coax her to go to the bathroom. As a result, she refuses, she wets herself, and Dube arrives to find her mother soaked from her back to her heels. 

It’s just one example of frail, elderly people suffering indignities because there’s not enough staff to provide the care they need, said Dube. “If you go for a tour, everything’s hunky-dory — the rooms are clean, the place is beautiful. But when it comes to actual care, it’s shocking.”

She blames the rapidly increasing acuity of patients in long-term care, as elderly people stay in their homes longer (thanks to home care) and only end up in long-term care at an older age with much more complex needs.  

Most residents are in wheelchairs and most have some form of dementia, she said. “These people require heavy care. They’re not people who can walk on their own, dress themselves, shower themselves, toilet themselves.”

Since her mother went into the home in March, she’s witnessed three nearby residents worsen to the point they now must be fed by a personal support worker. “It’s deteriorating rapidly and there’s no change to the care being provided to them,” said Dube. “So it’s totally unacceptable.”

Evelyn Nevin, whose husband Fred moved into the region’s newest long-term care home, the Villages at St. Clair, in February, said the facility is “magnificent.” But she believes understaffing contributes to missed baths, meals and recreational activities, and increases the risk of medication and treatment errors.

“It is like warehousing, there’s no other word for it, that’s what it is.”

She’s been bringing the petition to the home and local seniors centres. “Everybody’s signing it,” she said, suggesting that families are simply trying to get what customers of child day cares already have: a legislated ratio of staff to residents.

There’s no legislated requirement that nursing homes provide a certain number of hours of care. Ten years ago, they provided about four hours, but that number has probably dropped to 2.5 hours while the need for care has risen, said Tom Carrothers, who chairs the advocacy committee of the Family Council Network for long-term care homes in the region around Hamilton and is one of the architects of the petition campaign. Email him at tom@tjc-chem.ca to get a copy of the petition. 

“It means that they are in a wet diaper for a whole lot longer than they should be, that no one’s there to help them walk so they’re put in a wheelchair instead,” said Carrothers, who had a mother and mother-in-law in long-term care until their deaths.

When residents don’t get help walking they lose their mobility. When they aren’t helped to the washroom and are left in a diaper they become incontinent, he said, recounting a recent letter from a woman upset over the lack of care for her husband. When she arrives to see him, he’s crying, unshaven, in a wet diaper.

“This man was a very proud person, a very good person, but his self respect has fallen apart because he’s been treated this way,” Carrothers said.

He also noted that some families are paying $25 an hour for extra help from outside agencies that send personal support workers into long-term care homes. But many people can’t afford that, he said, resulting in one resident receiving the care he needs, while the resident beside him doesn’t.

The four-hour requirement is the main focus of a private member’s bill re-introduced this fall by Ontario NDP health critic France Gelinas. “I want it enshrined, I want it written down,” so families can demand improved care from long-term care homes, she said. She estimated residents currently receive about three hours a day. 

Talk to the families of people residing in long-term care, she said. “Their No. 1 concern is there isn’t enough time for staff to care for their loved ones.”

Ontario Long Term Care Home Association CEO Candace Chartier agrees there’s been a problem with staffing to cope with a dramatic rise in patient acuity. For example, while 62 per cent of the province’s long-term care residents had dementia two years ago, today that number is as high as 87 per cent.  However, Chartier contends that imposing a four-hour care requirement wouldn’t help much. 

“You’re not solving the problem that you’re looking after a very different population and you need more specialized investment,” Chartier said, suggesting a better solution is devoting dollars to initiatives that individually address behaviour problems (primarily by dementia patients) and find solutions.

The four-hour rule would cost $1.2 billion, a 30 per cent increase to the current government budget for long-term care, Chartier said. “That’s crazy. That money could be put towards specialized staff to look after that 87 out of 100 (dementia patients) who need that specialized approach.”

Since 2003, the government has almost doubled funding for long-term care, to $4 billion annually, according to a statement from Health Minister Eric Hoskins. Staffing has increased by 4,600 since 2008, and those new personal support workers and nurses have helped improve patient care, it said.

“All licensed long-term care homes are responsible for providing appropriate levels of staffing at all times based on the unique needs of each resident,” Hoskins said.  “I fully expect long-term care homes to provide residents with the quality of care that Ontarians expect their loved ones to receive.”

But Shelley Smith, a  personal support worker at a Windsor area home for 31 years, said long-term care residents are not being treated with dignity, “at all.” Though the mostly female workers are nurturing and do their very best, they’re burdened by a heavier workload, often working short staffed, she said. They work through breaks and past the end of their shifts.

“The residents get care, but it isn’t the care they deserve,” she said, citing as an example a woman with dementia who has forgotten where “her babies” are. If you don’t help her by looking for her babies, it only adds to the woman’s frustration. But you don’t have the time, Smith said.

“Everything seems like a production line.” 

Elderly residents require time, she said. You can’t rush them. If you do, it causes bad behaviours. 

“I feel they need to be taken care of properly, 100 per cent, and I think the owners (of long-term care homes) need to be looked at, the profits they’re making off these residents,” she said. 

“They’re allowed to maintain all this profit, profit, profit, and I don’t see it coming back to the home.”

Retired CAW national president Ken Lewenza regularly visits long term care homes to visit retirees and sees first-hand how PSWs and nurses “do not stop, do not stop.”

He sees patients sitting in a chair alone for five or six hours and it all has to do with lack of staffing, he said. 

“I think the problem is nobody every thinks about long-term care until they have a family member in there, and it’s a real problem.

SOURCE: Windsor Star, Brian Cross