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Winnipeg Free Press - ONLINE EDITION

Unconventional view of senior care presented tonight

By: Staff Writer

12/11/2009 8:23 AM | Comments: 10

WINNIPEG — Should a 98-year-old woman with diabetes be allowed to have brown sugar on her oatmeal, if that is her one biggest joy in life?

Dr. Rosalie Kane, professor of public health at the University of Minnesota, will speak to that example, and the broader issue of long-term care for seniors, during a public forum tonight starting at 6:30 at Deer Lodge Centre.

The larger questions include what kind of care do aging Baby Boomers want when they can no longer look after themselves, and how much individual choice can they expect to have?

Dr. Kane has an unconventional view.

She will argue that too often both safety and quality of life are unnecessarily compromised in long-term care setting.

The forum is being presented by the Manitoba Institute for Patient Safety.

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10 Commentscomment icon

After having lived for 98 years no human being should be treated like a medical experiment of how long can we force this person to live. It is way too often in nursing homes and hospital here that a mid to late 90's seniour is forced to undergo a ridiculous amount of medical tests and to live with an unbelievable amount of "rules". The worst by far is not food choices however but pain control. The fact that you will routinely hear nurses discussing cutting back on meds because a patient who is in their 90's might get "sddicted" is insane. At this point in life, who cares? Let them be free of pain and eat how they want, they deserve it.

I think this forum is the tip of the iceberg. The baby boomers I know won't "ask" for what they want, they will "demand" it. This is a strong, well informed generation who know thier rights. Good luck taking away my mom's "sugar"! HaHa

like my father was 86 yrs old smoked since he was 12 and once in care home was not allow the simple pleasure of one smoke a day. he lasted all those yrs. don,t think at his stage in life it was any big deal. no wonder he was an unhappy patient. Give these people a bit of simple pleaure be it sugar on ones food etc.

This is a question that should never need to be asked! I think I detect the distortion of hyper-vigilance.
As can be seen all around us every day, common sense has become skewed, colored, tainted, one-sided or simply devoid. They'll probably have to form a committee at the taxpayer's expense to find out if this should even be considered, by which time the elderly lady will have long since passed away. Hopefully someone will have had the audacity to let her have this simple, fleeting joy.

avatar

I agree macboy!!!!

avatar

I agree macboy!!!!

To anonymous (seriously - how can people post anonymously?), this is less about common sense and more about resident rights. My only hope is the more baby boomers who age and end up in these facilities the more outcry will be raised, and hopefully solutions will be found. Because while there are positive exceptions, the vast majority of homes are not places where you want to end up living.

Oy. Give this old dear the entire bag of brown sugar! We should all live so long. May she see 100 and beyond!

Any person with diabetes can have sugar as long as the appropriate amount if insulin is used but more to the point, please expand the question to show if the person with diabetes has type 1 or type 2 since the method of handling the diabetes can be quite different at meal times.

And what would she have to lose??? Would we prevent a 50 year old diabetic from having sugar - not likely. Common sense is becoming a rare commodity

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