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New Democratic Leader Kate White

Seniors having to stay in hospital for IV treatments

New Democratic Leader Kate White has raised concerns regarding IV treatment at the Whistle Bend care facility.

By Gabrielle Plonka on October 16, 2019

New Democratic Leader Kate White has raised concerns regarding IV treatment at the Whistle Bend care facility.

“Whistle Bend Place is home to seniors where their care and medical needs should be met, but we’ve heard this isn’t always the case,” White told the legislature during Tuesday’s question period.

“We’ve heard seniors experiencing extended stays in the Whitehorse hospital because of a lack of clear policies around the administration of IVs.”

White said she has heard personal accounts of seniors who are physically able to return home, but must stay in hospital to receive short-term IV treatment.

Keeping seniors in hospital is harmfully disruptive for those patients, she said, and worsens bed shortages.

Minister Pauline Frost responded that enabling seniors’ discharges from hospital as quickly as possible is a priority for her department.

She said she is unable to specifically answer to the use of IVs in Whistle Bend, but would try to collect that information for MLAs.

Frost said beds have been added at the Thomson Centre care facility to help seniors transition from acute care back into a facility or home environment.

She said extensive consultation has been done with seniors in the territory to aid her department’s understanding of how to improve services within Whitehorse and the communities.

Frost wrapped up her response with assurances that her department has taken “significant steps” to help seniors age in place.

She described collaborations with the Yukon Housing Corp. to ensure homes are appropriately fitted for senior life, more resources for home care programming and nursing staff and the provision of a physician at Whistle Bend Place.

“We are attempting as much as we can to ensure that seniors do not stay in the hospitals, as we know the longer you stay in the hospital, the less mobile you become,” Frost said.

“We want to ensure we enable them to get home as quickly as possible or to a facility of their choosing.”

White told reporters she believes there is a small number of seniors affected by the lack of IV treatment at Whistle Bend; however, the issue raises larger questions of gaps in policy at the facility.

“We were told this was going to be a continuing care facility, that it was going to ease the bed shortage at Whitehorse General Hospital; this was fantastic because seniors were going to have this home where they were supported,” the NDP leader said.

“Instead, what we’re seeing is seniors being taken from their home … and taken to the hospital where they’re being kept because Whistle Bend Place doesn’t have the policies in place to deal with it.”

White said she would like to see policy updates at Whistle Bend to enable seniors to spend as little time in hospital as possible.

She added that Frost’s response in the legislature showed deficient proactive leadership from the department.

“There’s a lack of understanding about the responsibility for government in the creation of policies for continuing care facilities run by government,” White said.

Whistle Bend Place was officially opened last December.

Its 150-room facility promised to be a “community within a community” in which residents would have access to a wide range of services, with opportunity to exercise, spend time outside and exercise, according to a government release last year.

The previous Yukon Party government had initially planned for an eventual 300-bed capacity.

Comments (5)

Up 6 Down 0

Lost In the Yukon on Oct 18, 2019 at 5:03 pm

Dearest Charlie’s Aunt ... and do you think a senior gets one on one care at WGH? I know of many whose families members have to come daily to the hospital to make sure they get to a washroom, get bathed, have water by their bedside. Nurses will watch as an elderly person struggles to get up and provide no assistance ... not their job. The problem is that care is not client based or centred. It is based on facility requirements and needs. WGH can be a terrible experience for a confused elderly person. But then again just look at how staff there are treated by the CEO and Management ... vacant positions, fewer beds than the old hospital yet a population that is easily 15,000 more than when it was planned ... and threats of being sent off to Dawson or Watson Lake because the previous government decided it would be a good re-election ploy to build hospitals there ... which everyone knew would be hard to keep staffed.

Up 10 Down 4

Juniper Jackson on Oct 17, 2019 at 2:22 am

I once had to have infusions at the hospital. My infusions were an 8 hr thing, but others who were receiving different infusions were just an hour or so, others were 2 hours.. The first questions I would ask then, is how long is this taking? Can it be done in day surgery? At no time was there a nurse sitting and staring at our IVs to see if they were still in place.. periodically, nurses came around to check the IV, look at the bag. There has to be more to this admitting to hospital than just an IV.

The admitting to Whistle Bend and Copper Ridge is screwy at the best of times.. A doctor does NOT get to put a patient in to residence.. Home Care does it. Home Care has 1 nurse. The rest of the staff are not trained medical professionals, yet they get to decide who is admitted. I was under the impression that Whistle Bend was a last resort for the terminally, or those with disorders so chronic they can not function.. not so.. there are craft rooms, there is a kiln even, exercise rooms, etc. Its a lovely building.. for an apt. block. People are wandering around.. all dressed and ready to go out.. Some residents have their own vehicle... and a couple..I am sorry to say, have not much longer. They receive care that is second to none.. I am glad Kate brought this up. The entire process needs to be revised... a Dr. should be able to place patients in these facilities. Period.

As for home care folks.. I really love everyone of you. Caring, competent at what you do, and nice people. But, when it comes to deciding who can stay in their home and who can't, you are over your heads.

Up 10 Down 12

Wilf Carter on Oct 16, 2019 at 11:44 pm

It is too bad she didn't have true information about the subject but uses people's health problems as political pawns in a chess game.
Disgusting behavior and I am one she is talking about.
Get a life NDP.
Larry why does the Yukon not get proper health care funding under a liberal government like conservatives who gave Yukon extra money for health care and liberals reduced it. Why?

Up 10 Down 0

Gail Nardi on Oct 16, 2019 at 9:43 pm

Kate White's comments appear to be prompted by a concern for the well-being of seniors, and while I don't question her sincerity, perhaps there are other considerations that need to be considered before suggesting that IV treatments are appropriate in a Continuing Care facility. While many goals and services of acute care facilities and long term care facilities are the same or overlap each other, there are significant differences. They require different staff to client ratios, different equipment, different building layouts, and staff with often completely different skill sets.
As an acute care facility, WGH focuses on diagnosis of an acute condition, treatment (medical or surgical), post-treatment rehabilitation and discharge of the patient.
Whistle Bend provides supportive care to seniors or persons with disabilities to enable them to enjoy their lives as fully as possible. Many residents have more than one chronic condition to manage, but one of the goals of Continuing Care is to provide a home that is not based on the medical model. And nothing says medical model like an IV.
The problem from a care perspective comes when a senior with multiple chronicities requires treatment for an acute illness or condition. A fracture becomes more than a fracture, an infection is not just an infection.
Treatment of the elderly becomes more complicated when other underlying health conditions need to be taken into account, and this is the future. This is not going away and seniors are going to continue to require hospital beds and the health care system will have to adapt. This argument about IVs is nothing new. In the 30 years I worked for Continuing Care I've heard it proposed several time, usually, though not always, by WGH staff because in their milieu it is a most efficacious form of treatment. I wish I had a solution to offer, but of this much I'm sure; anyone suffering from an acute illness or condition deserves the best possible acute care, whether an infant, an young mother or an aged patriarch. And the best acute care is delivered in an acute care facility. Anything less is ageism.

Up 36 Down 5

Charlie's Aunt on Oct 16, 2019 at 3:49 pm

Oh dear Kate, becoming the local NDP leader does not mean you need to spout waffle after waffle. Maybe spend some time at a Care Home, talk to staff, realize how much monitoring in place IVs in elderly people need. Skin and blood vessels become fragile as we age, needles can slip out of place and cause fluids to seep into surrounding tissue. Whistle Bend Place does not have the luxury of one on one care and people of all ages can end up in WGH for IV care when it needs to be left in place. Is this another emergency?

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