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My 81-year-old father was recently admitted to Southlake Regional Health Centre for a broken femur. His operation was successful and his original care I thought was good in the musculoskelatal (MSK) unit. But during his recovery, he was transferred to the cardiac unit due to his fast heart beat. This is where the system broke down.
While waiting for a cardioversion, his heart reset on its own, and we were hoping he could get medical clearance to be sent to a rehab centre. Five days later, he was transferred to another floor and he had to start the medical clearance process again with a new doctor.
Since his initial recovery from the surgery, for three weeks, no attention has been put on keeping his muscles activated. Lying in a bed has left him so weak that he can no longer stand.
Lying in a hospital bed has also impacted his mental capacity, although our family visits every day to try to keep him mentally stimulated. Our family now wonders if he will ever be able to go into rehab. Four days, after surgery he was able to stand with assistance, but now he needs the nurses to do all the work for him to stand to be transferred to a wheelchair.
Focus has been solely on an immediate problem without looking at the long-term goal of getting him back into his own house where my mother would be able to help look after him. Unfortunately, I believe he has physically and mentally deteriorated so much, that rehab may no longer be an option and may end up having to spend his remaining days in an expensive long-term care facility.
With treatment like this in our Ontario hospitals, no wonder our health-care costs keep going up and up. I will always wonder, if he had got the physiotherapy and rehab that he needed, could he have ended up spending more days at home instead of a long-term care facility. Which option do you think would have been cheaper for the public and been better for my father?
Miku Linkruus
Toronto
