A PCH staff member steals from residents with dementia
Regardless, placing a parent in a personal care home is one of the most difficult decisions that a child can make. It is everyone's nightmare that this could happen, or worse. About a month ago, an employee at another PCH, this time one owned by Extendicare, was charged with sexual assault.
We know both companies are respondents in class action suits alleging neglect and abuse to their vulnerable populations. There have been other news reports and special stories devoted to this on multiple media forums. Of course, for every allegation of poor care, there are thousands examples of extraordinary care that never makes the news.
There are 39 personal care homes in Winnipeg. Some of them are for-profit and some of them are not. It just so happens that Revera and Extendicare are for-profit homes operated by private companies. Some people object to anyone making a profit in health care. I don't have much of a problem with that as I think when a company is making a profit, they are motivated to provide excellent customer service as be as efficient as possible. Residents of personal care homes pay for towards their "rent" but the government subsidizes the remainder of the cost. While I don't object to companies making a profit, I do object to that profit being taken out of the province. Both Revera and Extendicare have head offices in Ontario and are Ontariocentric. I object to my tax dollars being taken out of the province.
Regardless, there used to be no vacancies in personal care homes. There are some homes which are still full and in demand, however, the Revera homes have many vacancies. It appears they are not offering the exceptional customer service that is necessary to keep the homes full.
I felt the email to the press from the executive from Revera was telling. He was some sort of corporate mucky-muck out of Toronto. Too removed from the situation. Doesn't the company trust their executives who live in Manitoba. Pat answer, we care about the safety and security of our residents and staff, blah, blah, blah..... No emotion. No apology. No acknowledgement of wrong-doing. No soul-searching. No plan for prevention of this in the future. Our tax payer money in contributing to this man's salary, and so far, I am not impressed.
Stealing from a resident is unacceptable. Period. End of sentence. However, it does make me wonder what the whole story is. Working in a personal care home is challenging and difficult work under the best of circumstances, however, it is rewarding. I simply can't accept that anyone would accept employment at a personal care home with the intent of taking advantage of vulnerable residents. Something must have happened.
Something must have triggered this employee. Richard Branson said that if you take care of your employees, you don't have to worry about your customers. Engaged employees take care of their customers. They feel ownership. They feel proud of their work. It sort of reminds me of a young friend of mine. He told me he was in a shit job, where he felt he was treated like a piece of shit, and as a result, he felt like a piece of shit. He needed the job but felt he had to quit or he was going to lose his self-respect.
I wonder if the need for profits caused the company to treat their employees poorly. More and more demands and increase in workload. Working short. No recognition for a job well done. No grace for honest and minimal mistakes. This can cause morale to go in the toilet.
Again, stealing from a resident is wrong and unacceptable. We all agree on this, but, I can't help wonder if there is a bigger issue in this story. I wonder what triggered this employee.
Maybe we will never know. Maybe someone will write a book about the care of our elderly in for-profit homes.
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