WhatFinger


Ontario Health Minister George Smitherman, Unionized healthcare workers

Curious George has his knickers in a knot



Ontario Health Minister George Smitherman is curious about the adequacy of adult diapers being used in Ontario nursing homes.

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Unionized healthcare workers are complaining that Ontario nursing homes do not have enough staff to allow incontinent residents’ adult diapers to be changed often enough, so the Ontario Ministry of Health is providing diapers with greater absorbency to make up for the staff shortage. But the diapers’ capacity isn’t really the issue, says Ontario Federation of Labour (OFL) President Wayne Samuelson, “The issue is: Do you have enough people to make sure you can change them?” Smitherman is considering wearing the adult diapers for a day to see how well they work and to “better understand the patient experience” before to responding to the OFL president’s demand for more workers. One would think that Smitherman would be capable of using his imagination in attempting to gain the patient’s perspective when it comes to wearing soiled diapers for an entire day. Regardless of how absorbent these super diapers seem to be, it seems that no one would willingly want to spend an entire day steeping in one’s own urine and fecal matter. But then, this is Canada and we do have the greatest healthcare system in the world, or so we are continuously being told. My guess is Smitherman wants to undergo this “patient experience” so he can tell the union they’re wrong and continue forcing incontinent seniors to soak in their own juices. Or maybe it’s a quirky proclivity on Smitherman’s part, something he’s long wanted to experience, but hasn’t had occasion to do so. In any case, it’s likely that Smitherman will continue dithering over decisions affecting our rapidly deteriorating healthcare system, all the while defending the McGuinty government’s lack of action. If Ditherman is really serious about soaking up the “patient experience” I have a few suggestions. He might try lying in a hospital bed for 26 days with only an intravenous tube providing the necessities of life. To make it more realistic, he can wear a gag so he can’t speak and his left side can be strapped down to simulate a stroke. And every morning a doctor can come by his bed and scrape his car keys across the soles of his feet to see if there is a reflex. Another “patient experience” that George should try is to be kept in quarantine for two weeks after cancer surgery because he accidentally came into contact with a patient who carried a highly contagious bug in his semiprivate room. It’s a particularly interesting “experience” if he has insurance for private coverage but the hospital refuses to give him a private room because they are reserved for penitentiary inmates. Then there is the “experience” of waiting for surgery. Ditherman could have a nail driven under his kneecap and told to wait for 18 to 24 months to have it removed. Another really cool “patient experience” would be for George to try to find a family doctor. He could visit ten or twelve physicians who are taking new patients, fill out a highly detailed medical form, have an interview with each doctor and then be told by all of them that his application was declined. Currently some 4 million Canadians find themselves without a family doctor, albeit George probably wouldn’t admit to more than, say 3.77 million. Smitherman is probably the worst choice of health minister McGuinty could possibly have made, excepting maybe Dr. Kevorkian. He refuses to admit that there’s anything wrong with his ministry, despite mounting evidence to the contrary and resorts to gaudy freak shows like possibly wearing diapers for a day to live the “patient experience”. In some ways Smitherman reminds me of the Emperor Nero, who is said to have fiddled while Rome burned. What the province of Ontario really needs is a health minister who doesn’t think his mandate includes pulling the wool over people’s eyes.

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Klaus Rohrich -- Bio and Archives

Klaus Rohrich is senior columnist for Canada Free Press. Klaus also writes topical articles for numerous magazines. He has a regular column on RetirementHomes and is currently working on his first book dealing with the toxicity of liberalism.  His work has been featured on the Drudge Report, Rush Limbaugh, Fox News, among others.  He lives and works in a small town outside of Toronto.

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