"Just to be clear, in my view this is not about more funding. It doesn’t cost more to treat a resident [or patient, family] with respect and dignity. This is about a change in culture.”
Ontario Minister of Health Deb Matthews, May 2012
For More information on this go hereTwo more incidents this week reveal a disturbing and growing trend by health care facilities and health care authorities in British Columbia to intimidate and bully visitors.
Jean Wilder Case – visitor banning and police intimidation
In early March, 2012 family and friends of Jean Wilder were suddenly banned by staff at the Invermere, B.C. residential care facility where she had recently been transferred following complications from surgery. The ban occurred immediately after the family asked the care facility for, and were refused, health and medication records, and an explanation of what pre-authorized payment of fees would cover.
Though family and friends lodged official complaints two months ago, they are still awaiting responses. Neither the care facility, the health authority nor the Public Guardian and Trustee have provided any response to complaints that Jean Wilder is being held unlawfully.
Since the ban was introduced, care facility staff have repeatedly called police in an effort to prevent family and friends from visiting Mrs. Wilder. Family and friends feel they are being intimidated by the police, and say that Jean Wilder is being negatively affected by the separation from friends and family, and by the isolation imposed on her as a result of not being allowed to leave the residential facility.
UPDATE: Ed and Ida Rivers, long-time friends of Jean Wilder, who submitted an official complaint to the health authority on March 24th, submitted a hand-delivered letter of complaint to the care facility site manager on May 25th. On May 29th, four days after their letter of complaint was delivered, site manager Sharon Carroll handed Ed Rivers this response from Interior Health. The health authority letter is dated May 24, apparently back-dated, misrepresenting the order in which the letters were issued so that it appears as if the the health authority had written their letter first.
The site manager’s letter makes broad, blanket allegations about Mr. Rivers but provides no specific evidence substantiating their claims. Ed Rivers denies Interior Health’s allegations that his behaviour has been inappropriate, that he is a threat to staff or residents, or that he inappropriately requested Jean Wilder’s medical records. He acknowledges that he was present in some meetings with staff in which the family requested medical information but says that Jean Wilder and her family wanted him at the meetings.
Banning decisions by facility staff not constrained by guidelines or substantiation
For any perceived slights and infractions, however minor, or even when asked inconvenient questions, staff in B.C.’s health care and residential care facilities apparently have full authority, accountable to no-one, to restrict or ban visitors from seeing their loved ones.
No evidence is required. No means of appeal is available other than the long, winding route of filing complaints with bureaucratic committees. The B.C. Patient Care Quality Program review board and health authority committees operate at great length from individual health care facility operators who make these decisions to ban visitors. Decisions from Patient Care Quality Committees come many months after-the-fact, sometimes long after patients have left facilities, or died.
Apparently, this trend toward aggressively banning family and friends from health care and residential care facilities is taking hold in Alberta as well. In subsequent postings, we hope to share with you the outcome of the May 4th meeting convened by the Elder Advocates of Alberta.
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However, there is some hope as the courts are starting to help some seniors who have been victim of this change in attitude by our Hospitals
A reader sent us another, more detailed, story about the court award for false arrest at Lions Gate Hospital (excerpts below). Mr. Park’s elderly mother died of cancer “soon after the ordeal.”
This story describes the attitude and rough treatment of patients and visitors by staff, doctors and police, something that is apparently becoming more common in B.C.'s health care facilities.
By Todd Coyne – North Shore Outlook Published: May 10, 2012
"A former District of North Vancouver council candidate was awarded $15,000 in damages Thursday after winning his lawsuit against the RCMP for wrongful arrest and false imprisonment. …
“Cpl. Norman took Mr. Park to the ground with the assistance of another officer and two or three security guards where he was restrained, held down and handcuffed,” the judge ruled.
“I characterize her actions as inattentiveness to rights, lack of care about her grounds for arrest and the authority for which she attended the hospital and the manner in which she treated Mr. Park after the arrest — keeping him for more than four hours completely unnecessarily.”
On June 5, 2006, Park had accompanied his elderly, cancer-stricken mother to the chemotherapy department at Lions Gate Hospital. While they did not have an appointment on this particular day, Park and his mother were in the habit of dropping in and speaking with her doctor — a habit that caused “something of a nuisance to the oncologist,” according to court documents.
This time the doctor flatly refused to speak with Park and his mother and threatened to call security if they did not leave the department.
Park and his mother decided to complain to hospital administration but were stopped on their way by two Paladin Security guards who told them to leave the hospital and that police were on their way.
During case proceedings in November, the court heard as evidence an audio recording…
When Cpl. Norman refused to let Park leave on the grounds she was investigating a disturbance and now the obstruction of a police officer for Park’s refusal to provide identification, the verbal altercation escalated and Park was forced to the ground and handcuffed in front of his mother and a crowd of hospital staff and attendees.
“I place emphasis on the following: Mr. Park was arrested in the presence of his ailing mother who was dying of cancer,” Judge Baird Ellan explained before announcing the damages.
“If Cpl. Norman had just asked Mr. Park to go outside with her and discuss the problem it likely would have been diffused. She acted insensitively not only to Mr. Park but to his mother whom she knew was both present and a patient at the hospital. I can conclude that it would have been traumatizing to the mother… to see her son taken down and carted away.” …
Soon after the ordeal, Park’s mother succumbed to her illness …”
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