Minna update - Wed. Jan 28 CTV

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Wednesday January 28th 2009

Disabled Sudbury woman to get home care restored

Updated: Wed Jan. 28 2009 6:16:56 PM

from ctv.ca

The Canadian Press

TORONTO ­ A woman in Sudbury, Ont., suffering

from Lou Gehrig's disease who has been without

home care for more than two months will soon receive the treatment she needs.

Minna Mettinen-Kekalainen, 42, has been relying

on friends and family to help her, but needs the

professional help of a home-care nurse to change

her adult diaper and feeding tube and to bathe her.

She also has Asperger syndrome, an autism

spectrum disorder, which can make her behave

erratically, so home-care nurses refused to deal

with her, the woman's advocates say.

When she was still receiving care, the nurses

deemed her behaviour to be part of an unsafe work

environment, so they refused to provide her with

care, said Ontario NDP health critic France Gelinas.

The two other contracted, for-profit nursing

agencies in the area also would not provide

Mettinen-Kekalainen with home care, Gelinas said.

In Ontario, community care access centres assess

a client's home-care needs and contract

for-profit nursing agencies to provide the services.

Gelinas stepped in and spoke with the North East

Community Care Access Centre on

Mettinen-Kekalainen's behalf. After a lengthy

conference call this week, she said a solution was reached.

Mettinen-Kekalainen, the centre and one of the

agencies that had been refusing care came to an

agreement they were all satisfied with, Gelinas said.

" They basically bent over backward to try to find

a creative, innovative solution, " she said.

Care for Mettinen-Kekalainen will resume Monday.

Now that the matter is settled, Ontario needs to

take a hard look at its home-care system, Gelinas said.

" In the short-term I wanted to get Minna some care, " she said.

" We've achieved that goal and that was the prime

motivator, but you have to look back and learn

from those tragic incidents as to how do you

change things so it never happens again. "

Former Progressive Conservative premier Mike

brought in competitive bidding for home

care in the 1990s in an effort to reduce the cost for taxpayers, Gelinas said.

Before that, the n Order of Nurses and

other charitable organizations had government

funding and provided excellent home care, Gelinas

said. Now, the for-profit companies Gelinas is

aware of pay low wages and have no benefits or

pension plans, which does little to attract top-quality nurses, she said.

" There has to be policy change in the way

home-care services are delivered in this province, " Gelinas said.

" Otherwise there will be more and more Minnas out

there, and this is not acceptable. "

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