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Violence Against Older Women - Power Point

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http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2013/03/16/national-post-editorial-board-our-growing-elder-care-crisis/

CANADA - GROWING CRISIS FOR CARE OF ELDERLY + SAFETY FROM VIOLENCE

SEBASTIEN BOZON/AFP/Getty Imag

National Post Editorial Board | 16/03/13

Late on Wednesday night, a tragedy in Toronto illustrated a growing, and too often ignored, national problem. Two women, residents of a nursing home, were beaten by a fellow resident. One died, and the other is in hospital with serious injuries.

Residents told reporters that the suspect, Peter Brooks, was known for outbursts, and that he had been moved to a more secure ward of the facility. It has also been reported that the facility’s security staff do not work during the night, when the incident occurred, and that even the secure wards are only staffed by two nurses each. Facility administrators have declined to comment, but union representatives for the nurses claim that a report detailing Mr. Brook’s increasingly violent behaviour was submitted in recent weeks.

This sad story brings to mind too many other such incidents that have occurred in Canadian nursing homes and long-term care facilities in recent years. Resident-on-resident violence in care facilities is not tracked at a national level. But an investigation by CTV News earlier this year discovered at least 6,500 such incidents occurred in Canada last year, excluding Alberta, Quebec and Prince Edward Island, where statistics are not kept.

Extrapolating the available statistics to the national population, however, provided an estimate of 10,000 resident-on-resident violent incidents each year. Even more troubling, they discovered evidence that for every reported incident, three others may go unrecorded by overworked staff who’d prefer to skip the paperwork.

These are alarming figures, and Canadians can count on the number growing higher as the population ages. And it is increasingly clear that our nursing homes, long-term care facilities and specialized-care wards are simply not prepared to cope with what is to come.

The problem is especially serious in situations where an elderly resident remains physically robust and mobile, but suffers from dementia, which can produce unpredictable, sometimes dangerous, behavioural changes.

This is a tragedy for their loved ones to behold, but also puts tremendous strains on a system that is already struggling to meet the basic needs of the elderly and the infirm. Patients in need of long-term care frequently remain in hospitals for lack of space in an appropriate facility, which in turn consumes scarce healthcare resources that would be better spent healing the sick and injured.

The story of Winnipeg’s Joe McLeod is illustrative of the problem. In 2011, police arrested Mr. McLeod, who suffered from advanced Alzheimer’s disease, after he shoved his wife during an outburst. Mr. McLeod spent the next several weeks in a jail cell, as no facility was prepared to accept someone with his medical condition. Public outcry saw Mr. McLeod relocated to a nursing home that lacked the ability to handle patients prone to violent outbursts. Mr. McLeod subsequently attacked and fatally injured a fellow resident. When police arrested him, he had no recollection of the incident, or of the fact that he lived in the facility. (He was later found not criminally responsible for the killing.)

This is an extreme example, as is this week’s incident in Toronto. But with an estimated 10,000 (at least) violent incidents in Canada each year, the problem cannot be ignored. While many governments have spoken of the need to incentivize and support more family-based care giving, where an elderly resident remains in his own home, or in that of a loved one, in the cases where violent behaviour is likely, families will likely be unable to cope on their own.

Improvements are needed, and fast. But cash-strapped governments have only a limited ability to devote more funding to long-term care. Privately owned care facilities should immediately make improvements to their security arrangements, and for publicly owned or supported institutions — especially those that care for potentially violent patients — if additional security cannot be afforded, we would hope that our police forces would step up and make sure that some of our most vulnerable citizens are properly secured.

No one wishes to see our care facilities turned into security zones. But elderly Canadians have a right to live out their final years in dignity and security. Behavioural issues among our aging population is a tragedy we cannot afford to ignore.