She is also thoughtful and confident, as nurses tend to be, and she keeps a tidy office; no messy desk, no haphazard stacks of reports. I, never neat, was at a disadvantage.
But I had questions.
I have been writing about some troubling situations in community housing – a man who died in his apartment and was not found for six months; another who gave his apartment over to pigeons; a woman who likes the sound of running water so much that her downstairs neighbours suffer floods; George Hallam, who lived and died in squalor and neglect; most recently, an old lady who could not keep herself clean.
There are many more such situations.
I told Liz that my view – based on far too many horror stories – is that, if you are vulnerable in community housing, you are sunk.
She said: "I think there is a problem. The system is not well-resourced, and it's not clear what to do when a situation moves from manageable to unmanageable."
I find that troublesome: When there is a problem, what to do should always be crystal clear.
I think the health-care system has become so decentralized, and so fragmented, that most vulnerable people, and many of the elderly, do not know where to turn for help.
Liz said: "The system hopes to help people to live in their own homes but, as a person gets less able, at what point do they access the right part of the system? It isn't easy."
We agree. But a deeper flaw has been built into community housing: There is no single point of contact for a person with a problem.
Liz said: "If the housing system had supports built in – and I think it should – the funding has to come from somewhere. I think TCHC is underresourced."
Here, we disagree. I see the problem as structural. If it were up to me, I'd turn the health promotion officers into social workers again.
She did not comment directly but she said that, as the population ages, problems such as the ones I've been describing are going to get more numerous.
I told her that many people have written suggesting that, if we notice someone slipping into helplessness, we should call public health.
Before she could reply, I added that the woman who alerted me about her smelly neighbour had in fact contacted public health, and the reply she got was a phone message suggesting she call the nearest Community Care Access Centre.
Was that woman right to contact public health? And did she get a proper response?
Liz said: "Let's say someone calls us about a senior – frail, alone, no longer going out, with no family – someone who needs help – if it had been described in those terms, I hope we'd go out. I don't know if it was described in those terms. If the super had called us, then I think we'd visit. We need to get the sense that there is urgency."
The super did not call.
But, just as there is an art to describing an urgency, there is also an art to listening, and to asking questions. I'm not sure that happened in this case.
Bottom line?
Public health has nurses who make home visits. The stopper? Nurses may not be allowed to enter a troubled person's home. Why? The Privacy Act is trumps.
If you do call public health, make sure you are clear about the problem. Should you also call the CCAC? Stay tuned.
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