Updated Seniors at Risk in BC

"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 here
Two 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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Help STOP institutional elder abuse – write your elected representatives, voice your concerns online, let others know what’s happening, or… take whatever steps you think will help make a difference to protect seniors’ legal and human rights from abuse by Canadian healthcare institutions and public agencies.

The Coalition to Support SENIORS AT RISK 



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 …”

Read more here

Harper, Britain and Elder Abuse

I have often wondered why Harper wanted to strengthen Canada’ ties to Great Britain, and now I am beginning to see why. It has nothing to do with love of Queen and country, but everything to do with love of Power. It appears to me that Harper loves the idea that the British people are among the most watched and spied upon people in the world. I think he is trying to move  Canadians along the path to accepting the idea that government surveillance is needed and that government can be trusted with the information it keeps on its citizens.

The Following articles from Britain, could be where we are heading in Canada

First Take away Canadians privacy

Pamela Owen wrote a very interesting article on the problem  people in Britain are faced with when going online. She says that details about text messages, phone calls, emails and every website visited by members of the public will be kept on record in a bid to combat terrorism.

The Government will order broadband providers, land line and mobile phone companies to save the information for up to a year under a new security scheme.

So we can see why Harper wants to have closer ties to Great Britain, so he can copy their security protocols  and make Canada the most spied upon country in the world.

But we still have a way to go to beat Britain but under Harper's agenda we may soon get this honour. of being the most spied upon people in the world.

"Nick Pickles, director of privacy and civil liberties campaign group Big Brother Watch, said: 'Britain is already one of the most spied on countries off-line and this is a shameful attempt to watch everything we do online in the same way."

According to the Telegraph, the Communications Capabilities Development Programme (CCDP) is already being attacked by privacy advocates as offering a license for abuse and as raising the “Big Brother” potential for universal surveillance. The British government, however, views it as a “vital” tool against terrorism and serious crime, and the legislation to put it into effect is expected to be proposed in May.

The information to be stored would not include the content of calls or emails but would consist of phone numbers and email addresses. These would would who was communicating with whom on what occasions and could also make it easy for police to track the movements of cellphone and computer users.

The British government is in the process of developing a scheme whereby all phone companies and broadband Internet providers will be required to store customer transaction data for a year and hand it over to security services upon request.

The databases would also include Facebook communications, Twitter posts — including direct messages between subscribers — and even communications between players in online video games.

Second start attacking the elderly and disabled

Disabled people face unlimited unpaid work or cuts in benefit according to this story in the Guardian.

Some long-term sick and disabled people face being forced to work unpaid for an unlimited amount of time or have their benefits cut under plans being drawn up by the Department for Work and Pensions.

Mental health professionals and charities have said they fear those deemed fit to undertake limited amounts of work under a controversial assessment process could suffer further harm to their health if the plans go ahead.

The new policy, outlined by DWP officials in meetings with disabilities groups, is due to be announced after legal changes contained in clause 54 of the welfare reform bill have made their way through parliament.

According to the Daily Mail, 'The Government in England has been clear that because we are living longer, public service workers must work a bit longer and pay a little more for their pensions,' 'But in return we have also made an important commitment - that at retirement, those on low and middle incomes will get at least as good a pension as they do now.

Harper is also planning on committing financial abuse against elderly Canadians and to frame and sell his position, he will be pitting younger Canadians against older Canadians. Canadians who need their rightly earned pensions to live with some dignity. Harper assumes that people in my generation will not care that younger Canadians will be worse off because of his changing the rules. He assumes that the older Boomers will have an "I'm all right Jack"  attitude and will not care about what happens to younger Canadians. Well I think he is wrong, I have younger brothers, cousins and friends, who are going to be affected by his change of rules. I care and find it objectionable that Harper is pitting one group of Canadians against another.

Conservative government plans to broaden its case for changing Old Age Security by emphasizing the higher price younger Canadians will pay to support government programs unless Ottawa moves now to bring down costs.

In her first extensive speech on the topic of demographics since the furor over pensions erupted last month, Human Resources Minister Diane Finley is expected to confirm on Tuesday that the details of proposed changes to OAS – which could include delaying qualification for benefits until the age of 67 – will be revealed in the forthcoming 2012 budget

update on elder abuse

I just received the following and  I thought I would share it with those of you who have been following the issue of Kathleen Palamarek, that I blogged about recently. She died on May 4th and my heart goes out to her family and I hope that they will be able to heal themselves as they work through the tragedy of their mothers death. The following is the text of the email I received without any changes but without the attachments, mentioned in the email.
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Hello everyone. This is an update of the situation regarding the plight of Kathleen Palamarek who has been the subject of a guardianship court application for the past three years. Her daughter Lois sought guardianship of her mother so her mother could come to live with Lois and her husband Gil, as she had wished and they welcomed. Mrs. Palamarek's sons sought guardianship so their mother would be kept in an institution (Broadmead Lodge).

On Tuesday, May 3rd, the judge released his decision on the guardianship court case that ended on February 18, 2011. Lois was not appointed to be Mom's guardian, her brothers were. 

The judge wrote a 70-page "reasons for judgment" document. It contains inaccuracies, and ignores whole swaths of evidence of wrong-doing and false statements by her brothers, and by Broadmead Lodge and their doctors that were revealed in court, or made to the court (and confirmed in court documents). It seems hard evidence (i.e. proof) of wrong-doing has no currency in BC courts any longer.

 

The judge, David Harris, goes to great lengths to portray Lois as a manipulative and generally distasteful person. Other people have said that this entire document reads like a personal attack by the judge on Lois. Worst of all is the way the judge portrayed Mom, and how he portrayed Mom's relationship with Lois. We should say "mis-portrayed". We're heart-broken over that, and angry. This document is now a permanent, very public, and wrongful stain on Kathleen Palamarek's character and on her relationship with her daughter. We have attached a copy of this judge's "reasons" if you wish to read it. We'd be happy to answer any questions people may have arising from it, and provide any documents to substantiate what we say. In our view, the only court in BC that is worthy of trust now is the court of public opinion.

Yesterday, another article about Mom's situation was published, this one commenting on the judge's reasons for decision. Here's the link to that article:

http://ctwatchdog.com/2011/05/04/granny-snatching-canada-judge-rules-institutions-trump-homes-for-elderly

For those of you who do not know, the past two and a half months since the court hearing concluded, and while we were waiting for the judge's decision, have been fraught with terrible events. Rather than go into an explanation, here are some media stories that explain the main incidents:

 

http://ctwatchdog.com/2011/03/30/granny-snatching-narcotic-poisoning-a-bitter-prescription

http://www.ahrp.org/cms/content/view/796/9/

http://northerninsights.blogspot.com/2011/04/how-things-work-when-they-dont-work.html

http://northerninsights.blogspot.com/2011/04/old-problem-elder-abuse.html

Now for the hardest news.

On Wednesday, May 4th, Mom died. 

 

Attached are the two emails and phone message Lois received from her brothers leading up to and announcing Mom's death. You can click on the voice message to listen to it. We are sharing these because we want people to know the truth about how Mom was treated by her sons and by Broadmead Lodge and their doctors. The perfunctory sentiments proclaiming sadness do not mask the underlying intentions of continued brutal repression of Mom, and of we who wished to protect her.

 

The next morning (yesterday) Lois made a request to the BC Coroner's Office, with the assistance of seniors' advocates Lyne England RN and Carol Pickup RN (retired) to whom we are very grateful. The Coroner's Office is now investigating to determine what further actions might be taken to learn more about the circumstances of Mom's death.

 

The events leading up to Mom's death were suspiciously similar to the events leading up to the February 24th narcotic poisoning incident for which Broadmead Lodge and their doctors are under police investigation. We later learned that the care facility doctor had suddenly and secretly prescribed Mom a morphine drug to be administered in ever-increasing dosage (i.e. "palliative morphine" as the Emergency physician explained with puzzlement, noting that Mom had no terminal illness pain that would justify her being administered this drug). We were informed that Mom had also not been given food or water for two days during the administration of the morphine. She would have died without our call to 911 on that day. On both occasions, Feb 24 and the events of the past week, the messages we received from Lois' brother did not match our and other visitor's observations of Mom, and there were additional things that just did not make sense. We do not believe morphine was used on this latest occasion but instead other, less obvious, means were at work to hasten Mom's demise.

We had our first inkling that something was afoot a week ago. Our lawyer Lloyd Duhaime sent a letter to register our concerns about Mom's care and health to the lawyers for Lois' brothers and for Broadmead Lodge. We also requested information on what medications she was now on, and  an independent medical assessment of Mom. We communicated those concerns to the Saanich Police as well (letters attached). No response was received from either Broadmead, the brothers or the Saanich Police to our letters . Lois' brothers did not permit Mom to be treated in a hospital; instead she was designated for "comfort care" only (lowest level "care"), which might be more accurately referred to as "aggressive neglect" as we and other visitors to Mom observed it. 

We miss Mom enormously, and have been missing her enormously since March 31st when Broadmead Lodge's lawyer imposed restrictions on access to Mom, preventing us and others from seeing her except for limited visits, and always in the presence of a security guard. The restrictions were so bizarre that no visitors were allowed to meet with Mom in her room or to enter her room for any reason, even with a guard present, even if Mom requested it. Instead Mom was marched down the hallway by a guard to a specific meeting room. Broadmead Lodge relented on that last restriction only this past week when Mom suddenly became too ill to leave her room. The morally repugnant impunity with which health care personnel and other public agencies in BC are permitted to operate in BC is an epidemic. It exists because staff are protected from prosecution, thanks to the rules and regulations established by our government. As a result, they can literally take, shake, bend and break a person's life. But we will not let them smear Mom's  name or her character in death.

For those who haven't seen it, please watch the short video "Visits with Kathleen April 2011". It was done only 10 days ago, and it shows that, right up until this past week Mom, was quite well. We believe that, had Mom received proper medical treatment, she would be alive and well today. This video completely debunks the considerable efforts made by health and legal "professionals" and by her sons to mischaracterize Mom's capabilities and to twist the reality of her life to suit their ends. Please read the blurb beneath the video (click on "Show more") before viewing because it explains things that otherwise would be confusing or go unnoticed as you watch it). 

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hrzngkyy6Ds

You are welcome to contact us if you wish. Your support has always been a great comfort to us, and to Mom. 

We will not let her death go unnoticed, nor be in vain. Think of Kathleen Palamarek this weekend, on Mother's Day. She was the best mother a person could possibly hope for, and so much more. She was pure grace.

 

Lois and Gil Sampson