Hoping for a home

Hazel Johnston hopes she won’t have to spend her 90th birthday in hospital.
The avid bridge player and pianist has been living at La Verendrye General Hospital here since last October—and has been on the waiting list for Rainycrest Home for the Aged here since November.
Johnston had been living in her own home, looking after herself with daily visits from her daughter, Carol Kliner, until she started having breathing problems.
She was admitted to hospital in October—and never went home.
Johnston put herself on the waiting list for Rainycrest in November when she realized she no longer would be able to care for herself.
“I’d love to have her home,” said Kliner. “But even if I had a house suitable to take her to, I can’t do it.”
Johnston uses a wheelchair to get around, and oxygen tanks to help her breathe, but she still likes to get out and chat with friends.
“As long as I take it easy, I’m OK,” she said Monday morning in the TV lounge of the acute care ward at the hospital.
Johnston already had been waiting in hospital six months when admissions to Rainycrest were suspended in April by the Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care due to non-compliance with ministry standards.
“Waiting is awful. Once I’m settled, I’ll be much better,” Johnston said, adding that “not knowing what’s coming up from day to day” was stressful for her.
Her wait may now be over. The ministry lifted the suspension on admissions to Rainycrest on Friday.
There currently are five vacant beds at the facility, and Johnston said she has been told she is the fourth name on the waiting list.
When Bonnee Kielczewski, the hospital’s utilization co-ordinator, told Johnston the news Monday morning about admissions to Rainycrest, her response was less than enthusiastic.
“I’ll believe it when it happens,” she said wryly.
Johnston has reason to be skeptical. She has been living in an institution for the sick for nearly a year when what she wants is a home.
“I think they should have more homes for older people,” she said.
While Johnston said she receives good care at the hospital, she can’t have many of her personal belongings with her—and she can’t enjoy the company of friends.
This is especially true since July when she was moved from the Continuing Care Unit of the hospital to the acute ward.
There currently are 18 people in the CCU waiting for admission to a long-term care facility.
Because there are only 20 beds in the CCU, the hospital had to move some patients to the acute ward to keep beds open for people requiring therapy and rehabilitation.
Kielczewski said Johnston was chosen to move because her cognitive functions are intact.
“We felt she could handle the changes,” Kielczewski said. “She’s capable of directing her own care.”
While Johnston said she has adjusted now, the change was difficult at first. “I was sick for a couple of days,” she said. “For a while, I didn’t get any sleep at night.”
Patients in acute care often need constant monitoring, and nurses come in at all hours to check on them, which can be disturbing to other people in the room.
With a turnover of three or four days, acute care patients usually are not in hospital very long. Johnston has several roommates over the course of a week.
“They don’t stay long enough to be friends,” Johnston said. She has also had a hard time finding a bridge partner.
“That’s the first thing I asked when I came in here: ‘Do you play bridge?’” she said.
“It isn’t what I like,” she said of the atmosphere in the acute ward. “I kinda fit in upstairs [in CCU] and I made some friends.”
“It’s not the social atmosphere that they have upstairs,” agreed Kliner.
An additional frustration to Johnston and her daughter is the way admissions at Rainycrest are handled. “We need to have the person deciding on who gets in [to Rainycrest] to be a Fort Frances person,” Johnston said.
Currently, admissions to all long-term care facilities in the Kenora and Rainy River District is handled by the Community Care Access Centre, whose main office is located in Kenora.
While people applying for admission are asked which facility they would prefer to live in, not everyone gets placed in their first choice.
Johnson prefers Rainycrest, not only for its location close to her daughter. “I’ve got quite a few friends in there,” she said.
Kliner is now hoping her mother will be in Rainycrest in time to celebrate her 90th birthday on Oct. 18.