Residents deserve better than four-bed wards: Burr
Monday August 27, 2007 -- Jason Thompson
Frost Manor administrator Linda Burr is anxious to see government funding eliminate all four-bed wards at the Lindsay long-term care home.

Burr is responding to an announcement made July 31 by Health and Long-Term Care Minister George Smitherman pledging the re-development of 35,000 long-term care beds in Ontario over the next decade.

This means all four-bed wards in the province would be upgraded to private or semi-private rooms.

“My feeling is that every single resident in my home deserves exactly the same as the residents in ‘A’ homes,” Burr says. “They worked just as hard their whole lives (and) they’ve already been reduced to a small space.

"Because I’m a ‘C’ home, I don’t think the residents should have any less of the so-called luxuries of life,” she says, adding the home is seeing a lot of residents with complex health issues that require more equipment which is not conducive to a four-bed ward.

Burr says even living in a semi-private room, which is shared between two people, would be a big improvement from the current four-bed wards.

“The construction of the room is such that it is actually a private . . . a lot more living space, more resident friendly bathrooms, more resident friendly hallways . . .  just an overall better set-up.”

Frost Manor currently has nine four-bed wards, eight semi-private rooms and 10 private rooms.

“I can tell you when have to come and live in a home, I do not want to be in a four-bed ward,” Burr says. “I want to come here and we’ll have private rooms.”

Burr says OMNI CEO Fraser Wilson has already done everything he can to provide for the residents at Frost Manor through renovations and now is time for the province to do their part.

Renovations, which were completed in January 2006, included removing the institutional-style nursing area and replacing it with a more compact nursing centre. The renovations also created more living space, a fireplace lounge, an extra dining room and a fenced-in therapy garden.

Burr says it isn’t uncommon for residents living in four-bed wards to pine for a private room.

“The problem with a four-bed ward and the lack of semis and private rooms is that I can’t always guarantee that the residents are going to be matched-up with appropriate roommates,” Burr says.

“It’s a little easier to deal with the habits of one person than it is to deal with the habits of three other people . . . they all have different sleeping habits, they all have different behaviours (and) they all have different needs.”

Unlike some homes, Burr says residents and their families are lucky to have a palliative care room at Frost Manor in order to spend their final days together in privacy rather than in a four-bed ward with three others.

“It’s difficult to afford the families the privacy that they need and it’s difficult for the other residents in the room,” she says. “It’s not a good situation.”