Review of Central Okanagan Hospice Assn by Cecilia Naranjo
This is my personal experience with my father in this hospice. It is my story with him, not yours, or others. Lucky you and your loved one if you had a good experience in this place. This is about what we lived in this cold and unfriendly place. I am putting out my feelings of anger, frustration and emotional pain to heal and finally let all this experience go. I chose to bring my father to this hospice in Kelowna because everyone told me it was a "beautiful" and "wonderful" place with lots of gorgeous flowers and plants and a "doctor" who would be there "anytime" for the patients. Well, what a huge disappointment. There were no doctor available when you need it, in fact, we saw him only once and he hardly wanted to answer questions. The nurses were bossy, rude, uncaring and unfriendly. The first thing we knew when my father was transferred from the hospital to this hospice, was their rules regarding the patients taking three ridiculous showers a day: before breakfast (they woke him up at 7:15 am), after lunch, and before to go to bed. REALLY? Does a poor man who is dying, has no energy for anything, has nothing in his stomach because he hasn't eaten anything but water or tiny bits of soup in weeks— need to have three showers a day or being moved and washed in the bed three times a day? It is necessary to wake up a dying person at 7:00 am to take a shower when he can't even talk or walk? Would you do that to your dying loved one at home? Thank God there were a few nurses who were really sweet, understanding, and caring. They made us feel better. But they were not there all the time. The bossy and rude ones are the ones who you will see more often. There is no freedom and respect for the dying person in this place. All is about the rules, the medication and the times for the shower. My father felt invaded in his privacy and in his body because of the constant bossy demands from the nurses to take the medication, to wash him, to clean his mouth, to change his clothes, to change the bed, to put another needle, to eat, to this and that when he was dying, when he was breathing for the last time. My father was not given the gift of peace and respect he needed to leave this world. He died angry, hurt, upset, embarrased, and humiliated. Specially with these two occasions: 1. When one of those rude nurses put in a hard and uncaring way in my father's mouth an oral stim, like a stick, like a nook brush to wash his tongue (and almost his throat). He (who was not moving anymore), moved his head one side to another with such strength to show that he was being abused and hurt but that woman. I told her what she did and she didn't answer anything. I asked her to leave the room and leave my father alone. 2. When he was pushed (almost obligated) to take showers or "relaxing" baths. These care aids women with Asian features, had no consideration for my father's skin or bones according to him; they washed him as if he were a "horse" (his words). Why these people have to be so cold, detached, rude, unfriendly, uncared and cruel when is about a dying person and his family? Is the system or Interior Health aware of all these? Am I the only one who has had this type of experience? Maybe my father was supposed to suffer this experience because of something he did in the past? Why did I have to witnessed all these when I had my heart broken for losing him? Am I exaggerating? Am I right or am I wrong by disclosing all these? I don't know, the only thing I know right now is that a hospice should be a sacred place where a person is allowed to die with dignity, with peace, with respect and love, not a place where the dying person is being scorned, bossy, annoyed, and pushed to do what they cannot or do not want to do when they are dying.
Cecilia Naranjo