Sudbury, Ont., mother forced to quit her job to care for her 6-year-old son | CBC News

With only seven years left until retirement, Sudbury mother Tina Senior was forced to leave her job as a nurse at the hospital last year to become a full-time caregiver for her son. 

“The balance between trying to meet his needs, and keep him safe and healthy, and trying to just remain human and take care of the needs of our other son have become impossible to balance all of the needs,” Senior said. 

“That’s going to affect us for the rest of our lives now because my pension is lost.” 

Alex is non-verbal and relies on a gastrostomy, or G-tube, for eating and drinking, and deliver nutrition directly to his stomach through a tube inserted into his abdomen.

“I couldn’t figure it out anymore.” she admitted, as she was unable to juggle between her responsibilities at work and having to leave at a moment’s notice to run to the school to administer a G-tube feed.

Could you imagine if a child without special needs went to school and they were denied to drink all day at school?– Tina Senior, a mother from Sudbury Ont. 

Alex’s school has a policy that only a regulated health professional can administer tube feeding.

A private home-care provider has a large portion of the contracts, including the one to provide Alex with 1.5 hours of home care daily, to hydrate him.

But Senior said the small amount of respite care she gets to feed Alex has been unreliable.

She said the problem arose when the nurses assigned to her son did not stay for the entirety of the visit. 

They would set up the feed then go render care elsewhere and return back to the school.

“Like if you’re going to go under the premise that it is only safe for a nurse to do it, then how do you leave them without a nurse while it’s happening?”

The family reached their breaking point one day when Senior received a call from the nurse saying the pump was not functioning correctly.

Senior attempted to troubleshoot the situation with the nurse over the phone and they came up with a plan to make sure that Alex got the nutrition he needed for the day. 

“I didn’t hear another call back, but at the end of the day he came home with his tube feed bag full of everything he should have received for the day and he had actually got nothing.” 

As a result, said Senior, Alex became dehydrated, requiring her to keep him up late that night to replenish his hydration.

Senior was ultimately forced to file an incident report. 

“Could you imagine if a child without special needs went to school and they were denied to drink all day at school?”

Privatization and underfunding of home care

Nickel Belt MPP France Gélinas said the privatization and underfunding of the home-care system has resulted in vulnerable citizens being left in limbo.

Reflecting on her 17 years as an MPP, she said she has received thousands of complaints from families against the home-care system. 

“They are the first family with enough courage to speak out.”

Gelinas said most families are in such vulnerable position that they cannot risk losing the minimal support they receive.  

“If they lose this, they fall apart.”

In a statement to CBC News, the Ontario Ministry of Health highlighted the addition of more than 17,000 new nurses and thousands of personal support workers (PSWs) to the health-care workforce in the past year.

“Our government knows that the home and community care sector plays a critical role in connecting Ontarians, at all ages, to the care they need, in their home, at every stage of life,” the statement said.

The province also committed to a $1-billion investment over three years in this sector to ensure Ontarians of all ages receive necessary care at home. 

Furthermore, they said they have made the $3-an-hour wage increase for PSWs permanent and are investing $300 million to help individuals start careers as personal support workers, benefiting both long-term care and community care sectors.