Thank you.
Ms. Hall, a few weeks ago I was alerted to a tragic situation that a young man, Roger Foley, was struggling with. Roger has cerebellar ataxia. He's currently being cared for in a hospital in Ontario. Roger needs an intense amount of care due to his physical limitations, and struggles with very basic things like swallowing and shifting from his bed to a sling. Roger is completely dependent on health care workers for his very life.
When the hospital informed him they were going to transfer him from hospital to a care home due to COVID-19, Roger became incredibly distressed. New caregivers, new routines, new lodgings are all real challenges for the severely disabled. Continuity of care helps them feel they have some semblance of control over their bodily autonomy.
As you can imagine, as the hospital shifted Roger, he began to despair. His new caregivers were not able to adapt easily to his particular needs and tried to force him to agree to procedures that would make his care easier on the nurses—for example, pressuring him to have a G-tube inserted rather than allowing him to eat independently with the help of a nurse.
Is this endemic in long-term care, the idea of putting the efficiencies of care ahead of the needs of the autonomy of a disabled patient, whose life is completely in the hands of the caregiver and has very little capacity to refuse?