Powell River-Sunshine Coast MLA Nicholas Simons is demanding answers from the health minister in the case of an 84-year-old Gibsons man with severe dementia, who has been stuck at Sechelt (shíshálh) Hospital for the past nine months.
Tom Morrison’s wife, Corrine, told Coast Reporter he was first admitted to the hospital early last July, after showing dementia-like symptoms. Doctors suspected a kidney infection, and after treatment he improved. But Corrine said things quickly took a turn for the worse, and he was readmitted at the end of July and has been in the hospital ever since.
Simons and Corrine said that because the hospital isn’t set up for cases like Tom’s, he’s often restrained in a chair under heavy sedation, and there have been incidents that include wandering into other patients’ rooms, an attempt to climb out onto the roof, and lashing out at health care workers.
Corrine said Tom often feels like he’s being held in jail, but she praises the nurses and hospital staff for doing their best, and understands how sedation and restraint might be the only options in that setting. “The nurses can’t handle him, they’re not trained to deal with this kind of stuff. He needs the nurses who are trained for this, the ones in Shorncliffe and Christenson [Village],” she said.
Corrine said her husband is on a waiting list to get into those facilities, but he keeps getting bumped. At Easter they were preparing to move him into the dementia cottages at Christenson Village, but at the last minute the spot was given to another patient.
“I’ve talked to people in Vancouver, the people in charge – everybody – and nobody knows why they keep bumping him [down the waiting list] and keeping him in there,” Corrine said. “It’s not fair to the staff, it’s not fair to him … to think he’s been living here all these years, and he can’t get into Christenson.”
Corrine said she decided to go to Simons and talk publicly about the situation in the hope of getting some action from Vancouver Coastal Health. “Something’s got to break,” she said.
Anna Marie D’Angelo of VCH said the health authority is “working to keep him [Tom] on the Sunshine Coast, including during this period waiting for an appropriate residential care bed, at the request of his family. He is under the care of a physician and his medical condition makes providing care for him outside of a specialized facility – like a special care unit – challenging.”
D’Angelo added that VCH has also put Tom on the list for a special care bed on the North Shore, as an alternative, and the family is welcome to contact the Patient Care Quality Office to discuss the case. VCH says it tries as much as possible to accommodate people’s wishes to be in facilities in their home communities.
Simons said the Morrisons’ situation is extreme, but it’s part of a bigger pattern of concern over wait times for transfers from hospital to residential and specialized care.
Simons said, “There’s obviously something severely wrong if an acute care bed is being occupied by a senior who isn’t given any opportunity for stimulation, or for programming or socializing or appropriate safe care.”
When Simons raised the issue at the Legislature on April 27, Health Minister Terry Lake said he’s willing to work with Simons on finding a resolution. He also pointed to the Patient Care Quality Office, and the government’s record on increasing the number of special care beds in B.C.
