Survey Results
| |
Home>Kincardine>2009>Feb
by
Fred Kirby February
4, 2009
When
discharged from the hospital last fall, I learned what someone called “the
best kept secret in town: Home Care and its umbrella organization,
Community Care Access Centres.”
I waited with trepidation for my first home care worker, Linda. A pleasant
woman, Linda put me at ease immediately except when she mentioned giving
me a bath.
I ought not to be so concerned; Community Care Access appears to have all
the supportive equipment to care for a patient in their own home
Community Care Access Centres are the coordinators for a variety of
community-based services. When needs are identified and funds available
the Centres contract local services such as: Closing the Gap (Occupational
Therapy [OT], Physical Therapy [PT], and Nutrition support. Para-Med
provides personal care workers, home maker functions, dietician for
diabetics, and the VON.
Visits may be from staff such as VON who, in my case, comes weekly to
check by vital signs or to take blood samples with the results going to
the hospital for my doctor who may wish to change the medication. Two
personal care workers, Linda and Pat from the Para-Med Home Care Services
visit me for a total of three times a week to help Sylvia where needed,
give me baths, help me with my exercises and do a number of functions they
or I may identify as needed. They are beautiful people to whom I look
forward to seeing, considering my lack of health.
My one wish for them is that they receive equal pay for equal work.
Considering care workers in hospitals and retirement homes (I cannot speak
for nursing homes) the personal care workers are paid less than they would
receive at the other institutions. It is not fair. Considering their
important role in the health services, care workers are grossly underpaid.
When reviewing our total health services: hospital staff and all those on
the outside supporting the hospital, we should be looking at the full
picture not the bits and pieces.
|
