Sheehan: Where’s the outrage over treatment of frail seniors?

When an older person has a fall or is ill in Ontario, it’s becoming more and more difficult to give them the care they need and deserve.

Published Feb 01, 2025 • Last updated Feb 01, 2025 • 2 minute read

A patient waits in the hallway at an overcrowded hospital. Many Ottawa seniors are not getting the support they need to recover from falls or illness, and they end up in the ER with no supports to get them home again. Photo by Errol McGihon /POSTMEDIAHaving worked as a nurse in emergency for many years, currently in geriatric emergency, I find our inability as nurses to care for our frail seniors as they should be cared for deeply disturbing.

The strangulation of funding to our hospitals, home care and long-term care leaves staff trying to provide care to this vulnerable population in main hospital hallways where lights never go off, or in classrooms, the garage at the General campus, or the “tent” at the Civic. The emergency department is continually over-capacity, causing hours of waiting, with few free beds. This past week, the Queensway Carleton Hospital emergency advised that its wait to see a doctor was 12 hours. No hospital is much better these days.

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What is missing is the outrage over how our seniors are being treated at the end of their lives. These elders went to war, built our social safety net and hospital system, and paid taxes their whole lives. It is incredibly sad to see.

Picture an 85-year-old on a minimal fixed income. She is struggling to live alone in an apartment. There is no family or it is far away. She breaks her ankle. After hours on a stretcher, often in the hall, she ends up with a cast. She normally walks with a walker but what to do now? She can’t go home on crutches. She can’t get meals or bathe herself. She needs an assisted living setting to help her recover and retain her function. Many seniors do not have at a minimum $150 per day convalescence in a retirement home, all of which are for-profit. The minimum stay allowed for this type of care is two weeks.

Home care might be an option but with cuts, the level of care available is not adequate. What happens when our lady needs to go to the bathroom in the night? There is no such thing as 24-hour community care unless you can hire your own costly supports. The wait for long-term care is years.

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So, our senior needs to be admitted to an acute care hospital bed at a cost of thousands per stay. It is doubtful that she will ever be able to return home without significant supports despite the fact that this would be the best and most cost-effective solution. We all want to stay in our home as long as possible. Most of our seniors are terrified of long-term care after seeing what happened in those homes (mostly for-profit) during the pandemic. That care has not really improved since, yet funding continues to go to these private care facilities regardless.

Currently, our provincial government seems focused south of the border while our vulnerable seniors languish in halls for hours, even days. It is challenging for staff to give proper care in these areas with any semblance of dignity.

Again, where is the outrage? As a society have we simply given up demanding better care for the powerless? This generation deserves so much more from all of us.

Pamela Sheehan is registered nurse in Geriatric Emergency Management at The Ottawa Hospital.

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