Kudos to the Toronto Star.
While I normally disagree with everything on their pages, with the exception of the punctuation, good for them for taking on one of the sacred cows of Canadian/Ontario health care: home care and the CCACs.
Community Care Access Centres are supposed to be this wonderfully efficient agency that coordinates home care and paramedical therapies for discharged hospital patients who can (allegedly) be back at home.
How much do you love waiting at a government office for your driver's license?
Isn't it fun when you have to negotiate with city officials about something inane like a permit?
Now imaging haggling with nameless bureaucrats to get the nursing, personal support or other care that they require, ostensibly to keep them out of the hospital (less expensive).
Ladies and gentlemen-this is what is known as rationed health care.
I know all about it because I have to fight all the time to maintain the care that I have in place for my disabled child.
Every year, we are threatened with more rationing of care.
It's totally exhausting. My only advantages are that I am fluent in English, won't take no for an answer, and that I know how to get publicity on certain issues and make sure they get to the media.
If you have no connections, or don't speak English, or are a pushover-your relatives will just die because of the attitudes that people have toward this taxpayer supported boondoggle.
You would think they were running a family business they are not only stingy with hours-they make a pilgrimage every year to try to get people to agree to cut their own hours. When I was younger and my son was younger I stupidly and naively fell for their theatrics ('there are so many OTHER families that need help...")
Now if they even mention it, I tell them quietly that I will not agree to any reductions, and if they decide to make me a test case, that I will be notifying my Member of Parliament, my Member of Provincial Parliament, my city counselors and my media contacts. Let the court of public opinion weigh in-it won't be pretty
So many idiot "case workers" so ma.ny levels of mismanagement.
So much waste (new computer programs, paying nurses for meetings in the evenings once a month-I guess they have never heard of the internet, etc..)
One time when my son was sick, he had to have a "pic" line for nutrition-this is a line that goes right into one of the major veins. They didn't want to release him from hospital because the CCAC had no nurses that were available to come to my house once a day to change the "pic" line.
They were unmoved by my pleading that I would come in once a day to have the dressing changed and injected with heparin to keep it clean.
So, I learned how to do it right then and there, and threatened that if they didn't discharge him I would sign him out against medical orders (this triggers an investigation-they don't like it).
I changed it faithfully for the few days necessary until it could come out.
Our health care system is crumbling. Moms and Dads, brothers and sisters have to pick up the slack-this is what it comes down to. We have to be paramedical professionals and therapists in addition to paying the salaries of these bureaucrats in spades and have no accountability.
So once again-congratulations to the Toronto Star for this series-I will definitely be keeping an eye on it.
