It Starts With NO
It starts with NO
I recently had the pleasure and honor of taking part in my first SE Health Future of Aging Café in Calgary on June 27.
What an amazing event, bringing together individuals from all walks of life who have an interest in shaping the future of aging. It was a pleasure to reconnect with some old friends in the senior care industry, and meet new ones from the public library, youth services and others, to talk about the future aging and what we want to create.
There were five “provocateurs” who posed some questions to a group of about 60 individuals and then we broke out into smaller groups to discuss the issues that pertained to us. Naturally, I took part in the conversation about continuing care and of course I stated my belief, which I have always believed in and will always continue to believe in; we should not be institutionalizing our seniors. It is simply not okay. I was quite surprised with the hostility I encountered from a physician, and I was disappointed with what this physician brought in terms of her opinion. Her opinion was very limited that we need to continue institutionalizing our seniors, that we need to continue with the continuing care model because of limiting factors such as staffing, finances, etc. She was quite emphatic, that because these individuals need medical care, we need to create clinical environments for nurses and doctors. It was so disappointing to hear that that medical model and thought process is still out there. If we continue to start with this limiting belief, that we must continue to institutionalize people because of all these factors, we just have to make the institutional model better, it will never actually change. If we don’t change the funding model, if we don’t drastically change the way we think about caring for seniors and aging and if we start with this physician’s archaic, limiting belief that ‘institutional care’ is what we are bound to do, it will never change.
Here is who you need to ask. Ask the seniors themselves. Will any senior say, “Yeah, I want to go into a big continuing care facility with 190 strangers and I’m going to become friends with them because that’s what is needed for the nurses and because we need economies of scale for the nurses.”
I don’t buy it. I never will. It doesn’t work. It doesn’t work for the staff, and it certainly doesn’t work for the seniors who need care.
What we need to start with is NO. Start saying, “No more big institutional care facilities.” It doesn’t matter how nice you make them; it is not what seniors want.
A lot of people can’t get past the sentiment that this is the way we have to do senior care because this is the way we have always done it. They believe we need economies of scale. They believe we can’t ask families to be a part of their loved ones care because it will impact the workforce. They believe we simply don’t have enough care providers to offer alternatives, like care in the community. I believe these are all limiting beliefs and if you start with those limitations, we will never achieve meaningful change in the senior care industry.
Ask the seniors. If you ask them what they really want, I promise you, they will NOT say they are looking forward to living in a nursing home.
The whole mindset around nursing homes being ‘the only way’ reminds me of a Captain Kirk and Spock exchange that I once heard referenced in a university lecture.
Spock would approach Captain Kirk concerned that there was an asteroid coming towards the ship and they were doomed. That there was nothing they could do.
Captain Kirk would say, “There’s gotta be something. What else could we do?”
Spock would come up with an idea but say it won’t work, giving his reasons for his belief.
Captain Kirk would not give up and would continue to question, “what else can we do”?
They would go back and forth with Spock saying there is nothing they can do and Captain Kirk challenging him with, what else can we do?
In the end, they always come up with another solution they can try. Something completely new and innovative.
That is what we need to do with senior care. We don’t need to “hit the asteroid” so to speak, in terms of senior care.
Quit thinking that nursing homes are the only solution. That the large institutional care facilities are the only way to provide care and quit trying to make them better. Find a new way!
Maybe the older generation of seniors, in the 90 plus years of age, are accepting of nursing homes, because it is all they know, but the younger generation of seniors, in the 55 plus years of age, will not accept the institutionalized model of care. The younger generation of seniors will challenge, “what else can we do” because they see the effects of the institutionalized care on their parents and/or grandparents and they are willing to try something new.
We must start with no.
Institutionalized care facilities are not where we are going.
There must be other ways we can do this. Let us be like Captain Kirk and find a new way.