Long Term Care and Home Care

for

People with Special Needs and Seniors

This blog was last edited on September 5, 2014

April 11, 2015 @ part C

Elizabeth has a Developmental Service Worker Diploma from Loyalist College and has worked in long term care facilities for the disabled and seniors, group homes and schools for for special need's people. She is now a free lance author. 

Part A 

The Role Of Long Term Care and Home Care in a community. 

First of all, let's talk about why long term care and home care services exist. 

The rights of special needs people have come a long way since the dark ages.  We now live in a society where everyone deserves to be looked after, no matter who or what type of disability they have, and we often do it very well. 

Long term care facilities, and home care support programs exist because of the strain and difficulties it is for family members to care for these people at home. 

There are far too many stories that have ended in tragedy when families try to keep their special needs loved one at home and this is another reason why these services exist. 

These programs provide three important fundamental purposes: 

1) they provide badly needed care or support for the special need person or senior.

2) they provide needed 'relief' for the primary care givers and

3)  They create jobs.  Can you think of a better place for the government to spend it's money than to care for people who are not able to care for themselves? 

Social Services was started during the Roman Empire, at least 60 BC, they knew they had to look after ALL of their people, no matter who or what they were. 

Any government who would ignore or neglect this sector of society and spend money on other things, not making this, food and shelter a priority, is a selfish, stupid government, and should not be in power.  

In the 1980s and 1990s, many services were cut, like physiotherapy departments at nursing homes, so they could afford to give all staff raises.  This is just one example of what happened across the province of Ontario, as salaries increased, services decreased. They cut one of the most important programs to give the staff a raise!

For more information about this topic, please visit this blog:

http://povertyandeconomicdisparityincanada.blogspot.com/

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Part B

The following was presented to someone for Robert's legal issues.:

The Robert Latimer Story

and

The Mercy Killing Debate

Elizabeth Moult

Developmental Service Worker

   Having worked with residents comparable to Mr. Latimer’s daughter, I can speak from personal experiences.

   First of all, the challenges in keeping a disabled person in the home are insurmountable.

   One of the reasons long term care facilities exists is because of the toil this task brings to the healthy stability of the family unit.

   Mr. Latimer’s daughter was booked for another hip abduction surgery.   Having worked with residents who have had this done and listened to their twenty-four hour painful cry afterwards, I can empathize with what Mr. Latimer must have been anticipating.

   At this time, the Province he resided in had cut his home support funding which assisted with his daughter and provided badly needed parental relief.

   It’s my opinion, that these combined conditions basically caused insanity in Mr. Latimer.

   Who gases their child then phones the police to report it?

   In his mind, he honestly thought he was doing what was in the best interest for his daughter i.e.: putting her severely disabled body out of misery.

   The home support programs fill four basic services.  A) They provide employment for support workers, B) they provide badly needed relief for the family unit and C) they provide stimulation for the disabled person whose life is often spent in the confines of one building twenty-four/seven. 

   Anyone who believes in reincarnation or is aware of their past life (s) will tell you that when you die, your soul leaves your carcass and flies to a new host to start over again as an infant.

   Mr. Latimer probably wanted to celebrate her spirit in this manner.

   Thus is the basis for mercy killing;. The right to say good bye to a painful life in favor of another chance at a better life or the right to say goodbye to the pain that plagues their bodies every second of every day.

   I don’t believe anyone has the right to make that choice for any individual and if a disabled person can respond to blinking once for yes or two for no then they are cognitively aware and should be allowed to choose mercy killing for their life. Even my old geriatric cat said she wanted to be put down.

   I do not believe in life support machines for extended periods of time.

   My own wishes are that anything like that on me is to be turned off.  I do not want to be kept artificially alive.

   I also do not agree with force feeding and feeding machines for people who are refusing to eat.

   If someone wants to end their life all they have to do is hold their breath and quit eating.  This is their way of saying, it’s time to go.  I personally don’t feel that the caregivers have the right to force that decision on anyone.   

Part C 

Quote from this article:  "She said her later father, then 94, was hospitalized north of Toronto after suffering a very minor stroke that left him with some difficulty swallowing.  She praised her nurses but said "because he couldn't feed himself he wasn't being fed most of the time."  

This is abuse.  If seniors are being neglected to the point that they're not being fed then that is called neglect and neglect is considered abuse. 

Nurses and PSWs are making any where between $20./hr up to $100/hr in some emergency room hospitals.  We can afford salaries like this but we can't afford to feed seniors.  Sheesh.