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Are there recommend for Family Senior Care?
QUESTION: I don't know how many of you out there have had to deal with this yet
but the state of this program is ridiculous! Do you realize that the
only way for the senior to get subsidized by the gov't for living in a
nursing type home is if, and only IF, the home is a home licensed by
the gov't? Now, this may not sound bad at first, but try to find an
actual "licensed" home that has a bed available in your area! In my
area, there is a waiting list of an average of a year or more! There
are very few of the licensed homes in this area AND there are a couple
of them that I wouldn't even allow a relative to live in because of the
way they are set up (more like an institution)!! The waiting list is
not the end of it either because even when your name comes up for the
next available space in the licensed home.....you are required to take
any available bed within a certain geographical distance from home (can
be 100km or so....I don't have the actual stats in front of me) until a
bed in your hometown becomes available! This makes the senior have to
move TWICE instead of once ...actually it could be 3 times if they had
to temporarily locate to somewhere until their name came up on the
waiting list!! There are lots of privately run homes that are
perfectly willing and capable of looking after their residents very
well and quite often in a more home-like environment BUT the resident
has to pay the TOTAL cost with absolutely NO gov't help! (the private
homes run anywhere from $1500-$3000 per month!) I don't understand why
there can't be more homes licensed so that the senior can be subsidized
(even partially) and be able to stay in their own community and not
have to use every penny of their life savings and/or sell their
property just to pay for their care! If they end up paying a full
$2000 + per month and are only bringing in a meager $1000 per month in
pension, it sure doesn't take long for the savings to be gone! Then
where do they go? Back to the waiting list? It's not fair how we
treat our seniors!!! How can we change this? Is it even possible?
My own grandmother is very close to having no choice but to sell her
home after a year in one of these private homes! She is very happy and
very comfortable in this private run home and would like to stay but,
at some point, may have no choice but to move ....again! She's been on
the waiting list for a year already and no beds are available! Another
thing that is happening is that people that can't afford to move to a
private home, are ending up staying in the hospital (and paying for
that) until such time they can find somewhere to go! It is appalling!
Thanks for letting me rant on this subject...it's very frustrating!
Any comments or suggestions are welcome
ANSWER: Methinks Lucretia is referring more to a lack of paragraphs more so than
punctuation. For some reason in forums people find it difficult (myself
included) to read a long dissertation that has no paragraphs.
I agree with you that it is criminal what goes on in this province in
terms of senior care. I guess I am just used to it not being a huge issue
because you never hear the same complaints out west in the Prairies. Of
course the time I lived out there I would have been deaf to senior's
concerns anyways.
All I know is that if and when I am still in this province as I approach
my senior years, and the situation has not changed, I will be promptly
moving back to Winnipeg.
What boggle's my mind is that some of my outlaws who are getting up in
years just decided to move back here when the bulk of their branch of the
family is out west. This province is just not a good place to retire
IMNSHO, and I think they are fools to put their savings in the hands of
the government.
That said feel free to correct me if I am wrong, but I do not recall ever
hearing about people being driven to the poorhouse, or not being able to
give their savings to their family, when going into an old folks home
when I lived on the Prairies.
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