“It’s like they are making me feel like I am worse than an animal,” a crying Terrie Hefford told The Telegram Tuesday.
Hefford has a long list of medical conditions, including a spinal cord injury in the late 1990s as a result of an accident in the U.S. when the ambulance she was riding in while training as a paramedic was struck by a drunk driver.
She eventually moved back to Newfoundland and into St. John’s after trouble finding adequate accessible housing in Clarenville.
Her physical condition has worsened over the years. She has gone from the use of canes to the wheelchair and requiring a mechanical lift to go from the chair to bed. She requires help with bathing, medications and changing of adult diapers.
Hefford takes warfarin for blood clots and insulin for diabetes. She has a dislocated shoulder and gripping issues that she said prevents her from administering her own needles. She requires meal preparation of pureed food due to a swallowing problem. Hefford also has sleep apnea and suffers from recurrent urinary tract infections, among other conditions.
Because of the cutbacks in hours and the rushed duties that her home care workers must complete during the allotted time, Hefford said she’s left 18 hours in bed with only six hours up in her wheelchair per day. She claims the situation also results in her not getting insulin and other medicine, as well as meals on schedule or else they are skipped. As well she suffers from multiple bedsores.
She said she was getting 80 hours a week home care, bumped up to 136 for four weeks after discharge from hospital in September. According to Hefford, she took a spill in her mechanical lift in August while she was being helped by a home care worker,.
She said a 10-day stay in hospital stretched into weeks while she tried to to find an agency to take her case before she could be discharged. She is separated and doesn’t have family available to pitch in.
The issue became one of concern for workers’ safety if she wasn’t approved for two workers. As well it was difficult to find people willing to go to Torbay, Hefford said.
She did find an agency, but her care hours have subsequently been cut back from 80 to 66, which means she can’t possibly have two workers on a shift to help with the lifting. She said Eastern Health case workers suggested she get a home care worker to split the shifts throughout the day to fix the problem of being left in the bed, but Hefford maintains no one is going to want to work those kind of staggered hours.
“They use excuses to shut you up. What is the reasoning now? The budget cuts,” Hefford said of health care officials. “You know what my social life is — it’s to go see a damn doctor. That’s my excitement.”
One day last week — due to one of the home care workers having a family emergency — she said she was left for 22 hours in bed without receiving her medications and meals.
In recent years, Hefford’s file has received at least three letters from physicians remarking on her home care needs.
At age 55, Hefford said Eastern Health is trying to push her into a long-term care home, a greater cost on the system.
“If you did this to an animal, you would be arrested and in jail. But you are allowed to do it to human beings,” she said.
A urologist, deeming the situation a ”shocking miscarriage of health care,” recommended 24-hour-a-day assistance with daily living to get her to the toilet properly. The letter dates to when Hefford lived in Clarenville. (She moved into St. John’s in March.)
In August, another doctor reaffirmed to Hefford’s social worker that she be should be given at least 80 hours a week for adequate home care.
And a handwritten note from a surgeon in August on Eastern Health letterhead recommends she be given full-time, permanent two-person home care.
Hefford has turned to Empower NL advocate Joby Fleming and has written an appeal letter to Eastern Health.
The spring budget introduced a two-hour per day cap on homemaking hours for clients in the province subsidized under the home support program, but Hefford argues those duties include essential help like meal preparation that still have to be done within the remaining respite hours.
A social worker has told her the reply to her appeal is in the mail, she said. Hefford doubts it’s positive.
[email protected]
Twitter: @bsweettweets
“It’s like they are making me feel like I am worse than an animal,” a crying Terrie Hefford told The Telegram Tuesday.
Hefford has a long list of medical conditions, including a spinal cord injury in the late 1990s as a result of an accident in the U.S. when the ambulance she was riding in while training as a paramedic was struck by a drunk driver.
She eventually moved back to Newfoundland and into St. John’s after trouble finding adequate accessible housing in Clarenville.
Her physical condition has worsened over the years. She has gone from the use of canes to the wheelchair and requiring a mechanical lift to go from the chair to bed. She requires help with bathing, medications and changing of adult diapers.
Hefford takes warfarin for blood clots and insulin for diabetes. She has a dislocated shoulder and gripping issues that she said prevents her from administering her own needles. She requires meal preparation of pureed food due to a swallowing problem. Hefford also has sleep apnea and suffers from recurrent urinary tract infections, among other conditions.
Because of the cutbacks in hours and the rushed duties that her home care workers must complete during the allotted time, Hefford said she’s left 18 hours in bed with only six hours up in her wheelchair per day. She claims the situation also results in her not getting insulin and other medicine, as well as meals on schedule or else they are skipped. As well she suffers from multiple bedsores.
She said she was getting 80 hours a week home care, bumped up to 136 for four weeks after discharge from hospital in September. According to Hefford, she took a spill in her mechanical lift in August while she was being helped by a home care worker,.
She said a 10-day stay in hospital stretched into weeks while she tried to to find an agency to take her case before she could be discharged. She is separated and doesn’t have family available to pitch in.
The issue became one of concern for workers’ safety if she wasn’t approved for two workers. As well it was difficult to find people willing to go to Torbay, Hefford said.
She did find an agency, but her care hours have subsequently been cut back from 80 to 66, which means she can’t possibly have two workers on a shift to help with the lifting. She said Eastern Health case workers suggested she get a home care worker to split the shifts throughout the day to fix the problem of being left in the bed, but Hefford maintains no one is going to want to work those kind of staggered hours.
“They use excuses to shut you up. What is the reasoning now? The budget cuts,” Hefford said of health care officials. “You know what my social life is — it’s to go see a damn doctor. That’s my excitement.”
One day last week — due to one of the home care workers having a family emergency — she said she was left for 22 hours in bed without receiving her medications and meals.
In recent years, Hefford’s file has received at least three letters from physicians remarking on her home care needs.
At age 55, Hefford said Eastern Health is trying to push her into a long-term care home, a greater cost on the system.
“If you did this to an animal, you would be arrested and in jail. But you are allowed to do it to human beings,” she said.
A urologist, deeming the situation a ”shocking miscarriage of health care,” recommended 24-hour-a-day assistance with daily living to get her to the toilet properly. The letter dates to when Hefford lived in Clarenville. (She moved into St. John’s in March.)
In August, another doctor reaffirmed to Hefford’s social worker that she be should be given at least 80 hours a week for adequate home care.
And a handwritten note from a surgeon in August on Eastern Health letterhead recommends she be given full-time, permanent two-person home care.
Hefford has turned to Empower NL advocate Joby Fleming and has written an appeal letter to Eastern Health.
The spring budget introduced a two-hour per day cap on homemaking hours for clients in the province subsidized under the home support program, but Hefford argues those duties include essential help like meal preparation that still have to be done within the remaining respite hours.
A social worker has told her the reply to her appeal is in the mail, she said. Hefford doubts it’s positive.
[email protected]
Twitter: @bsweettweets
