This is what was right in Long Term Care

Yesterday I wrote about all that’s wrong in care, today I’ll show what was right at one time.
Years ago when working in long term care, you looked after the resident and their families, often they became like family to you and you to them.
You made sure a spouse who came every day and stayed from 10 am until after supper hour, got fed along with the resident, sometimes we would even shave them, or turn their sweater outside in because they came in with it on inside out.
At times, you had a family member needing to fall apart at the prospect that mom or dad didn’t have many more hours left, and you sat with them, let them talk about it, hugged them and often cried with them. Sometimes they also worked in the nursing field, and they would struggle feeling like they had to carry their families through, we could and would tell them it’s ok, you can be the daughter, we’ve got this, take your nurses hat off.
As a team, if you were particularly close to one of the residents and it was their time to depart, the rest of the team would step it up and look after everything so you could have as much time with the resident as you wanted. It was true team work.
It was week after week attending the service of one of the residents because the family asked some of you to attend. You were always honoured to be in attendance, and it helped with processing the enormous amount of deaths you dealt with.
It was after losing a resident, having the family call months later with a request to see if you could go to the hospital and be with the spouse of the resident you lost, because they were now in hospital and palliative and they knew that person would be comforted if you could go, so those that were asked went, transformed the hospital room, so it was a comfortable place to sit and hold someone’s hand. And you spelled each other off and you cried with. The family when it was all done. These bits and pieces were not part of the job, but they were part of being human, about caring. During one particular time a family member asked the charge nurse how we did it, she said the team runs on love, and we did. We have so much more of ourselves, but we were allowed to, we educated the families on the dying process on what to expect, what the changes looked like. They always new if they couldn’t get there we would be there, often staying beyond our shifts holding the hand of someone who was dying.
We made sure every resident was made to feel special, everyday, the meals shared were full of chatter and laughter. A hug and kiss as you tucked them in, not on our schedule but on theirs.
I was fortunate to work with an incredible team, I will always hold them in the highest regards. I also was fortunate to have a manager who also believed in taking care of the staff as well as the residents, she could and would walk onto the floor roll up her sleeves and help with care, she would and did, have staff in her arms as they fell apart. I worked with her on many projects for the residents as well as the staff and we even did a complete overhaul of the staff room so staff could actually relax when on break. This was an environment of caring, the residents felt loved, their families felt loved, families got to know one another, and supported each other. The teams did amazing jobs of doing what is so sadly missing and disallowed these days. They were allowed to be human. The residents rights and dignity were always upheld. You pulled on each other strengths, every one got their hands dirty when needed.
The residents were told when another resident was dying, we ensured they could say their goodbyes, we always respected the fact this was there home, they were part of a unique family. We couldn’t imagine putting them through the emotional distress of them not knowing until they saw a body being wheeled out, or suddenly someone new was at the dinner table. These are all important parts of doing long term care right. I’m grateful I had the honour to be with so many residents and their families, and so grateful that I Worked with such an amazing team. I know the ones still working are struggling under the current state of affairs, my heart aches for them and for the residents.

So let’s take the good from years gone by, the mistakes of these years and build care homes that are small and intimate, that enable instead of disable. Let’s finally abolish locked units these are all against a persons human rights, let’s stop segregating those with dementia. Let’s start providing true dementia training, let’s start giving all of our seniors the respect they deserve, and let’s give them the same quality of life they worked so very hard to achieve for us.
Let’s take these large institutions and turn them into rehab units, places for the homeless, rehab units for people who’ve had strokes, accidents etc, to free up hospital beds for those waiting procedures, let’s make them into bright and happy day care spaces.
small intimate homes can be very cost effective, can promote wellness in both the residents and the workers, incorporated into the community’s settings it ensures our seniors maintain feeling like a valued parts of our community, allowing them to maintain dignity.