MPP hopeful help is on way
Gelinas has confidence in strategy to secure home care for Sudbury woman
Posted By CAROL MULLIGAN, THE SUDBURY STAR
Posted 17 mins ago


A Sudbury woman with Lou Gehrig's Disease who has been bucking the province's home-care system may soon get the help she needs to continue living in her own home.

Nickel Belt MPP France Gelinas said Tuesday she was optimistic a new strategy for providing nursing care and personal support for Minna Mettinen-Kekalainen will end a months-long dispute between the 42-year-old and the North East Community Care Access Centre.

As well as suffering from amyotrophic lateral scleroris (commonly known as Lou Gehrig's Disease), Mettinen- Kekalainen has Asperger syndrome, an autism spectrum disorder that can impair social skills.

For the last three weeks, Mettinen-Kekalainen has taken her fight with the CCAC public in media interviews -- even going as far as staging a brief hunger strike to protest the fact she has not been receiving home care.

The CCAC has been unable to say much about the case because of privacy and confidentiality laws, but Mettinen- Kekalainen has been vocal about being asked to sign an agreement with the agency not to threaten or harass home-care workers who visit her.

Mettinen-Kekalainen has said the CCAC interpreted her threat to report nurses for not following her doctor's orders to the Ontario College of Nurses as harassing and abusive behaviour.

When the woman refused to sign the agreement, services were withdrawn, she said, although the CCAC has said it does not deny services to anyone who needs them.

Gelinas became involved in Mettinen-Kekalainen's case after Sudbury Star stories about how the woman was living alone, being fed through a gastric tube inserted in her stomach and not being bathed regularly or having her adult diapers changed.

Mettinen-Kekalainen has been termed a palliative patient by her family physician and she is confined to a wheelchair and hospital bed in her home -- often on life-supporting oxygen.

But the former skydiver and motocross driver, who injured her back in a serious accident several years ago.

Gelinas, the NDP's health critic, was heartened this week after speaking on the phone with North East CCAC executive director Richard Joly about Mettinen- Kekalainen's case.

While files such as this are confidential, Mettinen- Kekalainen authorized the MPP to have access to personal information to help resolve the dispute.

Gelinas said Tuesday she got involved in the woman's case, although she is not a constituent of her riding, because she didn't want her to go without care any longer.

The rookie MPP acknowledged that Sudbury MPP Rick Bartolucci had done "good work advocating for Minna," but she said her years of working in the health-care industry gave her an advantage in dealing with Mettinen- Kekalainen's case.

"I'm very optimistic we will have been successful."

Gelinas rose in the Ontario legislature Tuesday morning to raise the case of Mettinen- Kekalainen, and ask Health Minister David Caplan what his Liberal government would do to ensure home-care services are delivered to Ontarians who need them most.

Gelinas said she was disappointed when Caplan accused her of politicizing Mettinen-Kekalainen's case to "inject her ideology" into the debate over competitive bidding in home care.

Gelinas and the NDP are staunchly opposed to the process in which for-profit nursing agencies compete to provide services for CCACs in the province.

The MPP said she was looking to the health minister to tell her what he could do to help Mettinen-Kekalainen, and "he chose to attack me instead."

Steve Erwin, an aide to Caplan, told The Star that the minister recognizes Gelinas' right to raise a concern about a constituent in the legislature.

Erwin said what he and Caplan consider "inappropriate" is Gelinas blaming any problems with Mettinen- Kekalainen's case on the competitive bidding process.

Gelinas stands by her position that competitive bidding, the norm in Ontario for the last decade, has eroded the quality of health care to the point that the system is broken and bogged down with bureaucracy and that is hurting people such as Mettinen- Kekalainen.

Erwin was equally firm in his position that it was wrong to use the case of a specific client to advance a political position.

Gelinas said late Tuesday afternoon she was "keeping her fingers crossed" that home-care services would be restored to Mettinen- Kekalainen any time.

http://www.thesudburystar.com/Articl...aspx?e=1408337