LITTLE CURRENT—As the season for jolly ho-ho-hos and Jack Frost nipping at caroling noses fast approaches, Manitoulin Centennial Manor’s ninth annual Tree of Lights fundraising campaign is getting ready to move into high gear. This year the bar is set on raising enough funds to enable an initial purchase of 20 new beds for the residents—that’s around $50,000 (not counting mattresses).
“The big push this year is for new beds,” said Manor Administrator Don Cook. “We do have high-low beds that come up higher than regular beds.” He explains that the higher position helps staff assist residents and also helps to prevent back injuries among staff, but that is really just a bonus. The real plus with the new beds is that they enhance resident safety and comfort.
In addition to being able to rise to the occasion, the new beds are also able to be lowered closer to the floor. “We have a number of residents who tend to fall out of bed,” Mr. Cook explains. In the bad old days, residents would be held in by restraints but that is thankfully no longer a course of action. “With the beds lowered almost to the floor, and the addition of special floor mats to cushion the individual who may have fallen out of bed, the chance of injury is greatly reduced.”
The new beds also have different wheel locking mechanisms allowing them to be moved more easily. “With the old beds the legs had to be raised up off the floor in order to be able to free the wheels to move,” said Mr. Cook. “The new beds have wheels that can be manually locked—so even if there is no power, you can still move them about if need be.” An important consideration should a bed-ridden resident need to be evacuated quickly.
The new beds have all the comfort settings to be found on the old beds, allowing the foot and head to be raised as needed or desired. They are also “bariatric” beds, meaning they can be adjusted to be wider or longer in order to accommodate larger or taller residents.
The biggest challenge with the old beds is that they are just that, getting old, and parts are becoming much harder to source.
“We really need 60 beds,” said Mr. Cook, “but we figured if we start with 20, then the 20 older beds that are being replaced can be used for spare parts for the remaining 40.”
It’s a strange quirk of Ontario’s approach to the care and keeping of some of the province’s most vulnerable citizens that while funding for more personal support workers is on the way, with personal care slated to rise from 2.75 hours a day to four hours a day by 2025 (“that’s if we can find them,” notes Mr. Cook), there is little to no funding for capital.
So, while the province is touting its enhancement of long-term care to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars, notably a promise to add 30,000 new spaces in the province, “those will be new, underfunded, beds,” said Mr. Cook.
“We are very lucky in that we are a municipally supported care home,” said the administrator. “We have that, as well as the community helping to support our residents’ quality of life. That allows us to have a capital budget.”
The campaign has enabled a complete refit of the dining room facilities, with colour schemes chosen by the residents themselves and new wheelchair accessible tables making meals more enjoyable for residents and guests.
Mr. Cook noted that thanks to an anonymous donor family, the courtyard project is nearing completion with the final planting of trees and shrubberies taking place in the next few days and the installation of fencing just being finalized now. The Tree of Lights campaign was also instrumental in that project, providing the seed money to get the project underway.
The official kick-off of this year’s campaign will be in the coming weeks’ edition of The Expositor, but you can secure your light on the Tree of Lights for a mere $10 by downloading a form from the Manor’s Facebook page, photographing the form and sending it with an etransfer to donationsmcm@extendicare.com, or by mail to Tree of Lights, Postal Bag 460, Little Current, P0P 1K0. You don’t have to limit yourself to a single light, or $10, and there is recognition of bronze, silver and gold donors.
