The level of care at the George Derby Centre has “sadly declined” since management laid off all nursing staff last year and contracted out their positions, according to the daughter of a Korean War vet.
Robert and Joan Hoffman moved into the Burnaby veterans care home in 2012.
Robert died there in 2013, and Joan remained at George Derby up until only a few weeks ago, when her daughter Jane Wheeler and her siblings transferred her to another facility in White Rock.
“It became very sad because we realized something was wrong,” Wheeler told the NOW in a phone interview from her Alberta home.
In spring 2016, George Derby issued layoff notices to more than 50 nurses because of financial difficulties at the centre. Wheeler said, since those layoff notices were issued, staff turnover has been high and morale almost non-existent.
In her mother’s case (Joan has Alzheimer’s), George Derby staff failed on a number of occasions, according to Wheeler.
Her mom’s care chart noted “glasses, knee brace and walker.” But on Aug. 25, Wheeler said she found Joan without her knee brace and dressed in someone else’s clothing.
“(The) 3 p.m. shift nurse came on and said she would check the chart. She brought the chart to the room; it was empty, not one item had been marked,” she added. “I asked if mom had received her morning and lunch medicine.
She said, ‘Of course, she would have.’ I asked how she knew. She could not answer except, ‘So sorry, it was a new (care aide) casual.’”
There was another incident in March when Wheeler was in town for a conference.
Joan’s care chart noted she had to be reminded to go to the bathroom before every meal, and be helped if need be, to ensure she wasn’t sitting in a wet diaper all day.
“I was there for five days. No one came to check or offer to take mom to the bathroom,” Wheeler said. “Maybe they assumed I was doing it, I don’t know. But the fact that she had no skin on her buttocks was really quite disconcerting for me.”
In June, Joan was punched in the face by another resident. Staff called the family to let them know, but they had to wait until a weekday to talk to the ward manager about the incident since it happened on a weekend, Wheeler told the NOW.
Another time when Wheeler went to grab the “spare” wheelchair to use for her mother, she found feces on it. The care aide picked it up with a Kleenex and told her because it was dry and crusty, it was OK to use the chair, Wheeler said.
“I asked her what I was to use and she brought a towel to put on the seat so we could use it. No offer to sanitize it for safety.”
The “breaking point” for the family was Aug. 6.
Joan left George Derby and walked 2.5 kilometres until she was found by police, according to Wheeler. Staff didn’t know where she was, she said, and again, the care aide casuals got the blame.
Wheeler believes her mom was trying to tell them something when she walked off the premises.
“People with Alzheimer’s wander. But mom had packed up all the pictures she owned. She had two bags with her and her walker was loaded. She was leaving. We wondered what was going on and just because of the incident, she’d been wandering more than normal, but this was the first time she packed up her room to go.”
Wheeler would like to see more training put in place for new casuals and better surveillance on site. (There are cameras rolling 24/7 but no one is watching the footage live.)
“They really need to pay someone to watch that door all the time. Cameras are not sufficient,” she said.
Peter Julian, MP for New Westminster-Burnaby, said “several” people have complained to him about service at George Derby.
“I’m very disappointed. George Derby residents deserve our thanks.”
Ricky Kwan, executive director of the George Derby Care Society, disputed Wheeler’s claim that the level of care has gone down.
“The care level has been consistent and if not better,” he said, calling Joan’s experiences “one-offs.”
“It could happen during the day that one of the care aides is not following through the process. For that reason, we have internal investigations and we are working to make sure all the team members are pulling their weight.”
Kwan noted the centre sometimes relies on casual care aides in the summer when part-time and full-time staff go on vacation.
“When the casual comes in, they may not have a shift for four to six weeks, so that’s why every time they’re coming in, they may have to pick up a few shifts before they get familiar with all the processes (and the residents),” he explained.
As for the Aug. 6 incident, Kwan said staff was not aware Joan disappeared. The internal investigation discovered she went through a gate that should have been locked.
“We found out from our maintenance worker, unfortunately, he did not lock the door. We are reviewing to improve surveillance and also locking systems. We also instructed all employees using that gate to be more vigilant,” said Kwan.
The executive director said he’d like to see a better funding formula from Fraser Health so better care can be provided.
“We have been trying our best to meet the needs of our residents, but it’s getting tougher and tougher from an operator’s perspective,” said Kwan.
The health authority, which is responsible for funding the centre’s operations costs, gives the George Derby Care Society $17.4 million annually. Funding has increased each year for the past six years for a total increase of $820,000.
An audit done by Fraser Health last year found George Derby was appropriately funded. One of the main contributing factors to George Derby’s financial troubles was a lack of planning to prepare for funding reductions from Veterans Affairs Canada despite advance notice dating back several years.
Veterans Affairs used to give the centre a chunk of funding to cover special care and programs for veterans, and some civilian residents were lumped into those specially funded programs. However, that funding model changed to per capita model as the number of veterans decreased.
Meanwhile, a report released earlier this year found 91 per cent of care homes in B.C. failed to meet the Ministry of Health’s staffing guideline of 3.36 hours of care per senior per day in 2015/16. George Derby had 2.87 direct-care hours per patient per day.
