Dear Editor,
After “much consideration,” the Royal Canadian Legion Senior Housing Corporation has decided to cancel Northern Health Region support services for seniors living in group care at the Jubilee Residence, effective September 15, 2015 (“Seniors’ home scales back Health Region partnership,” The Reminder, Friday, July 17).
What this means is that the majority of residents in the Jubilee Residence who get their meals provided by home care on a daily basis – and certain members of this residence rely on those meals exclusively for their sustenance – will no longer be offered congregate meal service.
Tenants who rely on meals exclusively will be able to have hospital food prepared, frozen and then brought to them in plastic containers to be microwaved for consumption.
This is not a replacement for home-cooked meals – not frozen or microwaved so as not to remove nutrients from the food – made in the communal kitchen, in which the majority of people who rely on home care come down to eat together in a social setting.
Though the majority of the residents do not need to have their food prepared for them, it is more about the social atmosphere that sitting down and breaking bread with your neighbour provides.
It’s true that the Jubilee kitchen will not be closed; however, home care will be forbidden to use it. What the kitchen “not being closed” means is that the Legion is not demolishing it.
In addition, all Northern Health Region-sponsored planned group activities – any social event, physical activity programs designed to prevent/postpone physical degeneration, team birthday greetings, etc. – offered in the Jubilee Residence will be terminated.
The NHR states that group activities will not be terminated, just no longer offered at the Jubilee. Their “solution” to this is instead of having blood pressure clinics, socials, activity events, etc., on a daily basis in the communal area within the Jubilee; to put 90-plus-year-old residents in a van and transport them to an alternate location three days a week.
On its main website, the Royal Canadian Legion Board states that they are “Canada’s largest Veteran support and community service organization.”
They go on to say that “across Canada [we] make a difference in the lives of Veterans and their families, provide essential services within our communities, and Remember the men and women who made the ultimate sacrifice for our Country.”
This writer wonders if the Legion board representing the Jubilee Residence have forgotten this mandate, as they are explicitly doing the opposite of “remembering and supporting veterans” by making this decision to stop supporting seniors. Countless empirical and scientifically peer-reviewed studies have been done that conclusively show how social roles and activity are central in treatments of successful aging.
At this point, so much work has been done on the subject that anyone working in senior care would consider it common knowledge that the more socially active a person is in their older age, the less likely they are to suffer from emotional or physical complications such as depression.
Having more active seniors means happier seniors and ultimately less strain on the medical system and other supports that might not have been needed if preventative measures were taken.
This seems to be common knowledge for anyone working with seniors, except, of course, for the Legion board, which does not seem to be taking the quality of life for the seniors they care for into consideration.The Legion board states that the reasoning behind their “much considered” decision is that they want younger, more independent people living in this residence.
This writer questions if the Legion board – during their extensive consideration process – ever bothered to consider that aging is inevitable. These younger residents will get older, and with the absence of support services for seniors living in group care, these residents will age faster and with more health problems.
The age minimum for the Jubilee Residence is 55. Perhaps the Legion board should implement an age maximum as well, so that it can better fit their restrictions.
Perhaps instead the Legion board should no longer manage the Jubilee Residence and turn it into a “regular” housing complex; that way there would be no confusion with the Jubilee Residence billing itself as a Legion Housing that supports seniors, when the board demonstrably has no desire to support seniors at this location.
The Legion maintains that residents can make do with freeze-dried hospital food eaten in isolation in their private suites and bused outings will be sufficient. The Legion board has not made this decision based on a monetary need, as they do not pay for any of these services; they are financed and provided for by home care.
Home care is not “cancelled,” per se; however, it doesn’t get any clearer than this quote from the president of the Legion in a letter to the Northern Health Region: group home care programs at the Legion Housing will be “discontinued.”
