Delays, unemployment, poorly trained staff: A young man’s mother is distraught over deteriorating home care provided by his CLSC and fears for her son’s life.
“It’s worse than it’s ever been. I don’t leave the house with peace of mind, I’m always worried,” says Caroline Morin.
His son Oliver is 27 years old. He became a quadriplegic at the age of 13 following a diving accident in the lake at the family chalet.
Since then, he has required two assistants to help him get dressed, sit in a chair, and administer medication when he gets up. In the evening, someone should come to help him go to bed; Two or three times a week, when he takes a bath.
Lateness and absence
Mme Morin says services at his CLSC in Montreal’s Villeray district are no longer what they have been for weeks.
He explains that it often happens that only one assistant comes in the morning or one of the two is late.
“You never know who will be there and who won’t be. Or, they send people who don’t know how to provide care. The inspection bag should be emptied. They don’t deserve to do that,” she fumes.
This week, the mother noticed that the urinary catheter was wrapped around her son’s leg.
She is worried about urinary side effects. Especially since January, Olivier was rushed to the hospital due to a kidney stone that could have cost him his life.
Mme Morin is also concerned about a reopened wound due to poor posture in his bed.
adaptation
“It’s stressful,” says Olivier, a student at CEGEP Ahuntsic.
If the support of assistants is increasingly uncertain, he can rely on the help of his 25-year-old brother. However, the latter was not trained to provide health care and establish his research.
Caroline Morin
PHOTO AGENCY QMI, JOEL LEMAY
CIUSSS du Nord-de-l’Île-de-Montréal is aware of the problem and is trying to resolve the situation.
“CLSC employees are on sick leave or on leave for personal reasons,” explains David Anzo, head of program management for home care for Villeray and La Petite-Patre.
His team consists of about a hundred properly trained regular assistants, he assures. However, it is in an “adaptation period” with the goal of relying less on the staff of private agencies it wants to remove from the Quebec health network by 2026.
– With Dominic Scally
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