Vancouver Coastal Health has employee take a frail, elderly woman from Squamish and dump her in at the Sally Ann in Abbotsford
By James Breckenridge. Politicians and politics have always been long on promises and short on delivery, but over recent decades the promises have become longer and delivery extremely short.
Deniability: noun; 1. the ability to deny something, especially on the basis of being officially uninformed; 2. the ability to deny something, as knowledge of or connection with a repugnant activity
As if that was not bad enough, over recent years politicians and politics have become long on deniability, while responsibility has headed towards non-existence.
The federal government downloads as much cost and ‘stick it to the provinces’ as it can; the provinces point fingers at the federal government and distance themselves from responsibility by downloading and sticking ministries and crown corporations with responsibility for problems; municipal governments point fingers at ministries and the provincial government insisting it is all the responsibility of the provincial government and they bear no responsibility for acting; the voters stick the politicians and politics with all the responsibility for problems by insisting politicians not tell voters anything they do not want to hear and punishing anyone who dares to speak of reality on an issue.
And so it does not matter how despicable, unconscionable or inhuman an action or action is because …nobody bears any responsibility for what occurred or occurs. And so the despicable, unconscionable and inhuman move from being the results of an error to being rare to being uncommon to not that unusual to ‘that is the way it goes’.
Despicable, Unconscionable and Inhuman – The Norm
It is how the despicable, unconscionable and inhuman become no big deal; where the question becomes “what is wrong with that?”
Where it is business as usual for Vancouver Costal Health to have an employee take a frail, elderly woman from Squamish and drive her into Fraser Health and dump her in Abbotsford – a city she has no knowledge of or connection to – not at a Fraser Health facility, but at the emergency shelter.
Apparently there are no resources or facilities in all of Vancouver Coastal Health healthier or more appropriate for a senior citizen than an emergency shelter in Abbotsford.
Where a non-Vancouver Coastal Health medical professional notices the blood stains on the elbows of the sleeves of the maltreated senior’s shirt and after looking at her elbows gently helps her to the nursing station so the wounds on her elbows can be treated and bandaged.
While the Vancouver Coastal Health employee states that acute had said her elbows were cared for; before scurrying back to Vancouver Coastal Health.
While the senior explained she had hurt her elbows when she fell and had to crawl for help.
Nursing and shelter staff are well aware that an emergency shelter is no place for any senior citizen … but what choice do they have? Toss her on the street?
As inappropriate as the emergency shelter is for this frail elderly woman, she is at least somewhere were the staff [people, her fellow human beings] are compassionate and caring.