Canada: Jane Meadus on the rights of patients at the time of hospital discharge
Via the Toronto Star:
Navigating Ontario’s long-term care system takes the mental acuity of a chess player, the tenacity of a sumo wrestler and the resourcefulness of a backcountry guide. It also helps to have a working knowledge of the law, medicine and pharmacology. Most seniors and their caregivers have none of these attributes. They stumble along, get bad advice, spend too much money and fall into traps that no one told them about.
The Advocacy Centre for the Elderly (ACE), a legal aid clinic for seniors, does its best to steer people through the maze but it can barely keep pace with the number of calls coming in. It welcomes opportunities to speak to groups of older Canadians before they reach the crisis point.
These information sessions are usually small and seldom advertised. But this week, Canadian Pensioners Concerned, a voluntary organization of socially conscious seniors, opened up its meeting to outsiders. The topic was “The Law of Admission to Long-term Care — What You Need to Know.” The speaker was Jane Meadus, a staff lawyer at ACE who knows the system, knows the pitfalls and knows how innocently trusting most Ontarians are.
She began with a warning: public officials — especially hospital discharge planners — don’t always tell the truth. Their motive is to get so-called “bed blockers” out the door. They push people into costly and ill-informed decisions. They invent rules and set deadlines that have no basis in law. They take advantage of families in crisis. “I’ve seen (hospital) vice-presidents come to rooms to yell at people,” Meadus said. “The pressure that is put on families is really, really horrendous.”