I am mad and feel helpless. I want to talk about injustice for seniors in the Quebec health care system, to scream at our leaders and tell them to wake up and manage their portfolios better. I want ill or dying people to have access to help and dignity as they struggle to live through excruciating pain or debilitating depression.
I am part of a private facebook group in the Montreal area that provides support and resources to struggling families of elders and today a post came up from a desperate family member of a senior with severe MS wasting away in a hospital room with no windows, no tv, no stimulation and no one to connect with when they are not there. The poor nurses and PAB workers are so busy they do not have time to turn him sufficiently so he is covered in bedsores. The very small family does what it can with visits but they cannot be there 24-7.
The shocking part is that the community group knows exactly what this family is going through because many have lived the same thing themselves, this is not a one-off.
We will all age and many of us will become quite ill before we pass. Do we want to live this? What does it take to create a healthcare system with compassion, a system that looks at the whole picture of physical and mental health rather than just how much money is involved? How much of the astronomical cost is related to past bandaid decisions that may address a symptom but not the cause?
Perhaps heathcare should be treated as an entity that is outside of government reach, so that bipartisan agreements can be reached and solutions based on long term vision can be implemented. We cannot keep jerking around healthcare institutions, workers and patients with budget cuts or improperly thought through miracle solutions every time a government changes. We all deserve to live and die with dignity and with appropriate care.
(This is an AI generated image, the real one is much sadder.)
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