By Kendall Worth!
I frequently address the issues of people living in poverty, as in this link, and generally in my blog, and going back to my days of writing in the NS Advocate. Because people living in poverty are often lonely and socially isolated they frequently have day surgery cancelled, because they have no one to look after them for 24 or 48 hours after returning home, from the surgery.
I recently interviewed 2 people who have Day Surgery coming up. These 2 people, along with others in my Community have suggested I should do a BLOG post on the question: What is the health care system in Nova Scotia planning to offer in terms of support to someone who is part of the Homeless Population has to go into the Hospital For Day Surgery?
For an idea of a Win-Win Solution for these who cannot make arrangements to bring someone with them, or drive them home after surgery see this post.
As for the Homeless population, someone to accompany them home is only one part of the issues they must face is they need to make a plan for day surgery. The question arises whether or not a homeless person can make these arrangements. IS it then safe for a homeless person to leave hospital and spend the first 24 hours+ of their recovery in a tent? The Bridge a shelter in Dartmouth is supposed to house homeless people in medical need but there are no reports about how or whether or not it is working.
Anyway the two People I interviewed for this BLOG post gave me permission to call them Andera and Sub. (Not their real names!) which I am using at their request, hoping that no one can identify them.
Andera is a welfare recipient who receives the Standard Household Rate of $950.00 a month and she receives a $400 a month housing subsidy. She pays $900.00 a month for rent So after rent is paid she has $550.00 for groceries and other bills. She does get the special telephone allowance of $40.00, and $54.00 a month for 2 special diets. However these Extra allowances she is getting has to go directly toward the cost of the special needs. Her power bill is $110.00 a month on budget billing. So that leaver her only $440.00 a month for the rest. She soon has to go into the hospital for a hernia repair.
Sub would not get into the financial details of her situation, but describes herself as a welfare recipient and her situation as basically no different from anyone else I talk about on my BLOG. She soon has to go into the hospital for corrective surgery on her leg.
And what the two folks named above have in common:
They have no friends to accompany them or pick them up from hospital. Their frustration, like many for whom I advocate on my BLOG is that the only people they know are people they know through standing in line at their food-bank or visiting soup kitchens. They both live alone and as when I have written about this issue in the past , they, like many others, I have written about and advocated for, cannot make arrangements to have someone with them when they do go to the hospital, for surgery. The surgeon is advising both of them that they need someone with them, or surgery will be cancelled if there is no one to drive them home. In their cases the surgeon is telling them they want the person who accompanies them home to be someone who owns a vehicle and drives.
The surgeons are heartless if they do not care that then the person only knows people from food banks and soup kitchens – none of whom are likely to won a car. And, of course, professionals like psychiatrists, psychologists, Social Workers, and Counsellors do own vehicles and they drive. However, we know that no professional will be available to do the driving because, as this post points out, it crosses the boundaries of professionalism.
I want to let readers know, I interviewed both of them a month ago and I hoped to find a solution by bringing them together to see if I can get them to make a plan to help each other where they both have to go into the hospital for surgery and need someone to accompnay them home. Maybe the surgeons will be OK with that support, since surgeries are six weeks apart. Then on each surgery day, maybe they can accompany each other home in a cab.
Hopefully things will work out!
Comments
Post a Comment