Elderly people are very special and they
require respect, loyalty, clear understanding of what their concerns are
and I think that is extremely important with Geriatrics,
we listen. And I think that's what they love about North York
is we have a lot of expertise and we look at it
from their perspective not our perspective.
From the moment I met them, I knew I'm in the right place.
They introduced me to a whole new way of aging.
They made aging not the fearful,
unhappy life that I'm looking forward to but to the contrary.
We're not just looking at the client from a one-dimensional aspect,
we're looking at them from many different facets and we spend a lot
of time getting to know that client initially
because we always say if we don't get a chance to get to know you, we can't help you.
The Day Hospital has made a big difference
in our lives because they help us
to articulate our needs, our
goals and then they help us to realize them.
So the fact that it's
multi-disciplinary is very significant.
We recognize that the doctor or the nurse can't do it all. So we really rely on
all the different healthcare disciplines to offer their unique
expertise in management of the patient.
Especially in geriatric patients, this is very important.
Here if you have a problem, there's somebody to listen to you.
From seeing the nurse, to going to the physiotherapist or going to the
pharmacist
it's a one-stop-shop and I can't imagine
that there's any other place like this.
Everybody brings their specialty to something, and so an elderly person that would flow through our system
would get the benefit of every discipline involved in that patient care.
So everybody comes with their special tool box
and then we work together and look at what's the best
needs for that patient.
We were through Emerg, through the admission process because they had records on him
and they just took care of all those details.
They ordered an ambulance and we arrived and
we were taken care of
very quickly.
We have the ability to try to prevent hospital admissions if we can but if we do need to send a person
to hospital
it is with communication, it is with
information that has happened throughout the individual stay in the program.
And then there's a good bridging because we can communicate with Emergency to be
able to report
as to how that individual's doing and
provide some sort of cushion for that client
going into hospital because that can very obviously traumatic.
We are trying to think about a hospital without walls.
That means this is a continuum and when a patient is going away from the hospital
we are still trying to take care of them. So we
have services at the Seniors' Health Centre.
So they include the Day Hospital outreach team, clinics,
the programs like the Osteoporosis and Falls Program,
the Memory Program, Parkinson's Program
and Chronic Disease Self-Management.
I think North York General is on a great journey to becoming
real leaders in care of the elderly.
We are involved in research, we are involved in
teaching and learning, we we do partner with our patients.
And so it's my dream that we continue to do all of these things
as we journey with the regional geriatric program and that we are well
aligned to the Ontario Senior
Friendly program and that we actually can achieve all the things that we want
to do to respect the elderly and believe in them.
Elder care is one of the hospital's strategic priorities
and so we are supported by our senior leadership team.
and we do have a lot of support from them
in maintaining the elder at home and
keeping them out of our ER Department.
And the geriatrician over here, and the team they're so amazing, they're so committed and passionate
about working with the elderly and we see that
through our patients, everyday.
I can't imagine that you would go anywhere and find the care that you
are given here and the attention that is paid to you.
It was a gift given to us, that's how I feel.
They gave us a gift to come here and
get better.