When my elderly parents went into separate health crises at the same time, I discovered the Canadian healthcare system is disorganized, fragmented, and does not have adequate hospital discharge procedures for elderly patients.
Health services for the elderly in Canada are in siloes, which means when an elderly person goes into a healthcare crisis, there is no one to coordinate their care from a big picture perspective. Unfortunately, all too often the lack of coordination results in haphazard discharge situations and unnecessary stress for patients and their families.
A recent article in HuffPost Alberta, “Health-Care Policies Have Stranded My Mother In A Hospital“ is a heartbreaking example of this very issue.
Susan Kennard, the author of this article, details how her 83-year-old mother was discharged from the hospital after needing treatment for a negative drug interaction. When she tried to return to the private assisted-living facility she had been living in, she was denied entry.
This began a stressful time for Susan’s family and, of course, her mother, who has been stuck with no alternative but to live in the hospital.
According to the article, “This scenario is so common nowadays that a new category of care had to be defined to describe the status of patients such as my mother: Alternate Level of Care (ALC). A patient may be designated as ALC if he or she is occupying an acute care hospital bed but is no longer acutely ill and does not require the intensity of resources and services provided in an acute care setting.”
People in Susan’s situation – with an elderly parent either stuck in ALC or who is forced to move in with them – must now begin the long process of determining the right place for their parent to live. In the meantime, busy children in the “sandwich generation” are pulled between the competing priorities of caring for their elderly parents, raising their children, and maintaining their careers.
“For the first month [Susan’s mother] was so shocked about her sudden and forced homelessness that she assumed there must be people in charge who would fix things as soon as possible.” Over three months later, Susan’s mother is giving up hope.
As we know at Silver Sherpa – the terrible truth is that there is no one in charge to fix this. And as Susan and her mother found out, the “health-care system does not seem to have any answers”. It takes a village to care for an elderly person and the acute healthcare system is only one set of participants in the village.
Situations like these are why Silver Sherpa exists. With our combined expertise in the Canadian healthcare system and in strategic planning and coordination, we are able to help people like Susan and her mother extricate themselves from situations like this and then plan for the future so it doesn’t happen again.
Your parents. Our priority. Silver Sherpa becomes your trusted co-pilot with specialized planning, coordination, and navigation services to help the elderly and their families get the care and support they need. Schedule a complimentary one hour consultation with us today.
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