Home care reinstated for woman with Lou Gehrig's
Posted By CAROL MULLIGAN, SUN MEDIA, THE SUDBURY STAR, AND FILES FROM THE CANADIAN PRESS
Posted 42 mins ago


Starting Monday, a Sudbury woman suffering from Lou Gehrig's disease will begin receiving the home nursing care she needs.

The North East Community Care Access Centre will resume providing nursing and personal support to Minna Mettinen-Kekalainen, 42.

Mettinen-Kekalainen has been involved in a very public battle with the North East CCAC about her home care.

The woman, who has an autism spectrum disorder called Asperger syndrome, has not received any help at home from the agency for months after nurses caring for her complained about her behaviour toward them.

Nickel Belt MPP France Gelinas said on Tuesday that nurses have been lined up to care for Mettinen-Kekalainen beginning on Feb. 2.

Like others with Asperger's, Mettinen-Kekalainen experiences some difficulty with interpersonal communication, and her power of attorney, Jason Bushie, has said that can lead to misunderstandings with her caregivers and others.

Gelinas, the New Democrats' Health critic, got involved in Mettinen-Kekalaine's case last week. Sudbury MPP Rick Bartolucci's constituency staff had been working on the case for weeks.

Gelinas said it was a case of "all hands on deck" being able to resolve the dispute between the woman and the agency.

"I'm not the Lone Ranger" riding in to the rescue, she said. "They basically bent over backward to try to find a creative, innovative solution."

The MPP said the North East CCAC worked hard as well to come to an agreement with Mettinen-Kekalainen, and Gelinas said she was confident the agency was "trying hard" to get the woman the help she needs.

Mettinen-Kekalainen was posting a video journey of her battle with the CCAC on YouTube.

She also started a hunger fast, refusing to take the liquid food supplement she receives through a gastric feeding tube inserted surgically into her stomach.

Mettinen-Kekalainen, a former adaptive rower and skydiver, was diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis three years ago and has been termed palliative by her family physician.

In Ontario, community care access centres assess a client's home-care needs and contract for-profit nursing agencies to provide the services. Now that the matter is settled, Ontario needs to take a hard look at its home-care system, Gelinas said.

"In the short term, I wanted to get Minna some care," she said. "We've achieved that goal and that was the prime motivator, but you have to look back and learn from those tragic incidents as to how do you change things so it never happens again. There has to be policy change in the way home-care services are delivered in this province."

Article ID# 1410531
http://www.timminspress.com/ArticleD...aspx?e=1410531