old medic
Army.ca Veteran
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Hospital to charge Dieppe veteran $700 a day
By MICHELE MANDEL
The Toronto Sun
http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/Canada/2009/06/18/9835731-sun.html
Hospital threat against WW2 vet 'illegal'
By MICHELE MANDEL
Toronto Sun
copy at http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/Canada/2009/06/19/9850886-sun.html
"Oakville-Trafalgar Memorial hospital"?
I suggest they no longer qualify to hold the name "memorial" and should be officially stripped of that
dedication.
By MICHELE MANDEL
The Toronto Sun
http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/Canada/2009/06/18/9835731-sun.html
OAKVILLE -- Paul Parkin has served this country well.
At 23, he enlisted to fight in the Second World War, refusing to take no for an answer when he was first turned down because of poor vision. He returned with glasses and they signed him up.
His first wife died while he was overseas and still he did his duty, accepting the army's decision to deny him leave. On Aug. 19, 1942, he bravely set out on the disastrous Dieppe raid, where he was shot in the shoulder and hip, and became one of almost 2,000 Canadians captured by the Germans.
Parkin would spend the next three years of his life as a prisoner of war in Germany, forced to sleep on dirty, bug-infested stacks of hay and perform back-breaking manual labour on enemy farms with little food until the war finally ended and he could come back home to his beloved Oakville.
Parkin has certainly done his part for Canada. But in his hour of need, this 92-year-old great-grandfather is being treated with scandalous insensitivity.
Because he won't move out of Oakville-Trafalgar Memorial Hospital into a nursing home in Etobicoke far from his family, he is now being threatened with a daily bill of $700.
"Is this how we treat our veterans at the end of the day?" asks his angry son, Doug, 52.
For the last two years, Parkin had been living with his youngest son and daughter-in-law until kidney failure required him to be hospitalized at Oakville-Trafalgar on Jan. 3. They almost lost him, but with the help of a feeding tube, he's regained enough of his health that he was ready to be discharged a few months ago.
An assessment by the Community Care Access Centre determined that Parkin couldn't go back home to his son because he's now confined to a wheelchair, requires constant care and the house isn't wheelchair accessible. So CCAC began looking for a spot in a long-term care facility and Parkin's family was assured that as a veteran, he would receive priority.
He filled out their form giving his top three choices of nursing homes, with all being in Oakville.
In the meantime, as a patient ready for discharge, Parkin was told he would have to start paying $1,578 a month to stay in the hospital, the same amount he would be paying if he were living in long-term care, with $722 of that picked up by Veterans Affairs. "They don't want people to lodge in their hospital. So be it. I understand," says Parkin's son.
The widower's only request was that they find him a nursing home in Oakville, so his children and grandchildren could continue their frequent visits. "I work shifts and I'm here at least five-six times a week," his son explains, as he sits in his dad's hospital room. "My wife and brothers are here all the time, too."
But at about 1:30 p.m. on Friday, May 1, Parkin was told the CCAC had found him a room at a nursing home 30 km and three highways away in Etobicoke.
'VISITS FROM FAMILY'
He had to let them know by the end of the day. His son and daughter-in-law tried to get over to check it out, but by the time the staff there returned their call later that Friday, a visit couldn't be arranged.
Even more importantly, Parkin didn't want to be moved so far away. So his family turned down the Etobicoke placement.
And for that sin, the senior could now be punished to the tune of $700 a day. "You continue to remain in an inappropriate bed to meet your level of care," the hospital said in a terse letter to Parkin, demanding a meeting for today.
"It puts me in a terrible position," says the worried white-haired veteran, as he stares out at the rain from his wheelchair. "It's got me so confused, I don't know what to do."
His son, the youngest of five children, says he's discovered his father's predicament is not unique among veterans.
"I think it's terrible. These are people who fought for freedom. We owe them a great deal of gratitude," he insists. "He's lived in Oakville since 1920. He wants to stay in this town and he has every right to stay here and have visits from his family."
A spokesman for Oakville-Trafalgar said privacy laws prevent them from commenting specifically on Parkin's case.
But according to Halton Healthcare Services policy, Parkin was warned "that the hospital will charge you a full daily rate of $700 as per the Public Hospitals Act if you no longer require the services of the acute care hospital yet remain in an acute care bed and ... do not accept the first appropriate long-term care bed offered."
His health may be frail, but his mind is sharp -- and Parkin has spent too much of his energy these last few days fretting about what will happen to his savings. "That's way too much," he says of the threatened $700 a day charge. "That would drain me."
And all because he doesn't want to be forced to move away from his family and hometown?
"I've been in Oakville close to 90 years so you can see the reason why I don't want to leave," he explains politely. "Not knowing where I'm going, it preys on my mind. I worry about it."
So the brave old soldier remains locked in a cage. No longer a prisoner of war, but now a prisoner of heartless bureaucracy.
Hospital threat against WW2 vet 'illegal'
By MICHELE MANDEL
Toronto Sun
copy at http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/Canada/2009/06/19/9850886-sun.html
TORONTO -- Yesterday's front-page tale about a former PoW being threatened with a $700-a-day hospital charge has sparked outrage from readers and is being investigated by the minister of veterans affairs in Ottawa.
Nova Scotia MP Peter Stoffer, the NDP's veterans affairs critic, raised the plight of 92-year-old Paul Parkin with Minister Greg Thompson yesterday and was assured it would be looked into.
Parkin spent three years as a prisoner of war after he was shot twice and captured by the Germans in 1942 during the bloody battle at Dieppe. "He served his country in horrific conditions and he is now in the sunset of his life," Stoffer said. "We should be handling any concerns that he has."
Instead, the great-grandfather has basically been told he's overstayed his welcome at Oakville-Trafalgar Memorial hospital, where he has been since January suffering from kidney failure and a heart condition. He's more than willing to be discharged, but the wheelchair-bound Second World War veteran wants to be moved to a long-term care facility in Oakville, the town he has called home since 1920, and close to his family who visit him almost every day.
Instead, the Community Care Access Centre told him last month that they had found him a place in an Etobicoke nursing home, and when Parkin dared to turn it down because he didn't want to go so far away and his family couldn't get there in time to check it out, the hospital threatened to start charging him $700 a day for taking up a bed they need.
As a patient ready for discharge, he is already paying $1,578 a month to stay on in the hospital, with $722 of that picked up by veterans affairs. The threat of $700 a day had the poor man terrified he would have no more savings. "That's way too much. It would drain me," Parkin said.
After his story appeared in the Sun yesterday, hospital officials made no further mention of the $700 at their scheduled meeting to discuss his options. But they still insisted their hands are tied and with waiting lists so long, Parkin has no choice but to move to a nursing home outside the Oakville area.
"My dad doesn't want to be in the hospital tying up a bed needed for the sick. He wants out and I want him where he will be comfortable," says his 52-year-old son, Doug, who has been fighting the bureaucracy for months.
This kind of arm-twisting of veterans is not new, according to Dave Gordon, executive director of the Royal Canadian Legion Ontario Command. "It's kind of cold," said Gordon, who has contacted veterans affairs to see if Parkin can be helped. "It's not the first time it's happened and it probably won't be the last."
In fact, a lawyer at the Advocacy Centre for the Elderly says they receive at least one call daily about a hospital threatening to charge from $500 to $1,500 a day if the senior doesn't take the first available nursing home bed found for them by the CCAC. In one case, a senior was hit with a $100,000 hospital bill.
"It's scare tactics to get them out," says lawyer Jane Meadus, institutional advocate at ACE, who insists the bullying is common -- and illegal.
Hospitals, she argues, cannot charge more than $1,578 a month so their daily rate is just a threat used to intimidate the vulnerable elderly to take whatever nursing home is offered.
And the CCAC, she says, is only supposed to contact the three facilities a patient has chosen.
"There is no way that they could legally have 'found' him a home in Etobicoke as he could not have applied there and they could not have considered his application," says the legal advocate. "More likely, there was an available bed somewhere, and they made him believe that he had to take it or face the consequences."
The severe shortage of long-term care beds is a serious problem in Ontario, but seniors shouldn't be the ones harassed and bullied.
"They call them bed blockers but it's not their fault," Meadus argues. "They didn't do anything but get old and sick."
To Parkin's delight, many have rallied to his cause.
James Caiazzo read of the veteran's treatment and was horrified. "This is so despicable. A 92-year-old man in a wheelchair who fought for Canada and they're threatening to charge him $700 a day? I'm totally appalled," said Caiazzo, 58.
"It really broke my heart," added reader Pamela Arnott, 71. "If we can't look after our vets, the world has come to an end."
While many elderly patients are too frightened to stand up to the system's threats, Parkin is a tough old soldier who won't surrender -- and neither will his family.
"If he wants to stay in Oakville, I'll stick to my guns," vows his son Doug. "I don't think it's right for a veteran like my father, who spent three years as a PoW sleeping on hay, not to have a bed in the community he wants."
"Oakville-Trafalgar Memorial hospital"?
I suggest they no longer qualify to hold the name "memorial" and should be officially stripped of that
dedication.