“It’s truly about the drugs, weapons, alcohol, and the violence”: Health-care workers detail what the chaos and safety risks in care homes with “special population units.”
Island Health is planning facilities in Victoria and Nanaimo for hard-to-house patients in need of around-the-clock care after an attempt to accommodate them in two long-term care homes failed.
That’s in addition to the health authority’s plans, yet to be announced, for 28 net new beds for people with brain injuries in the south Island and 16 in the central Island.Island Health created a “special population unit” in the 138-bed Dufferin Place nursing home in February 2022 for five to 10 patients with complex physical, mental and behavioural issues — sometimes including addiction.
“That’s the reason we’re going to issue a request for proposal, because we’re seeing a change in the demographic, and we’re recognizing that we’ll need a different model of care, and location of care, for those sorts of clients.” And until the new facilities are created, she said, the current unit needs stronger policies and standards of care.
“This is not nursing,” Lekopoy said. “This is insanity. This is not health care. It is just a s—- show.” The worker said addictions doctors and social and support workers were promised and instead they got “absolutely nothing.” “What we do for them is not care, it’s not integrity,” said the worker. “It’s not anything to do with encouraging health and healing and respect. We are just servants.”“You think of those poor vulnerable elderly that are stuck in the hallways, and in the chapel, and what they call alternate level care now in Nanaimo Regional General Hospital, and they can’t get a room because this special population person is taking up a four-bedroom room,” said the worker.
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