Resident Safety
Sometimes something unexpected can happen to a patient, resident or client that has caused them unintended serious harm. When the event is a result of healthcare provided and not due to the individual’s illness or the usual risks in treating the disease, it is called a critical incident.
Have you witnessed a critical incident? We need to know if an event like this happens so that we can learn from it and make our patient care system safer.
If you have witnessed a critical incident, call our 24-hour CRITICAL INCIDENT LINE at 204-788-8222.
For more information on Patient Safety and Critical Incidents, please visit the WRHA Quality website.
Protection For Persons In Care Act
Enacted in May 2001, the Protection for Persons in Care Act enforces the protection of persons in personal care homes and hospitals from mistreatment- physical, sexual, mental, emotional or financial. This legislation creates a formal process for reporting, investigating, and resolving allegations and suspicions of abuse in health care settings.
Operators of health care facilities must maintain a reasonable level of safety and protect patients form abuse. Under the legislation, concerned citizens and staff working in health facilities have a duty to report suspected abuse or the likelihood of abuse by anyone to the Minister of Health or his designate at the Protection for Persons in Care Office.
For more information on the Protection For Persons in Care Office, please see the pamphlet found in the back of this handbook.
Residents or their family members may contact the Protection for Persons in Care Office as follows:
Access Line: 204-786-7132 or toll free at 1-800-855-0511
Fax: 204-775-8055
Email: [email protected]
Website: www.gov.mb.ca/health/protection
Deer Lodge Centre Abuse Policy
Abuse as defined by the Protections for Person In Care Act refers to: any mistreatment, whether physical, sexual, mental, emotional, financial or a combination of any of them, that is reasonably likely to cause death or that causes or is reasonably likely to cause serious physical or psychological harm to a person, or significant loss of the person’s property.
Deer Lodge Centre supports providing the highest quality of life for residents and patients, and strives to maintain a positive and safe working environment for staff. Deer Lodge Centre will not tolerate abuse towards any residents and patients. All residents and patients are to be treated with dignity and respect by all staff always. Deer Lodge Centre will investigate all allegations of abuse. Deer Lodge Centre will take whatever action is appropriate under the Protection for Persons in Care Act.
Concerns about allegations of abuse can be directed to the Manager of Resident Care on your unit, your social worker, or the Protection for Persons in Care Office (204-788-6366 or 1-866-440-6366).
A copy of the Deer Lodge Centre Abuse Policy is available. Please contact the Manager of Resident/Patient Care or social worker.
Residents or their family members may contact the Protection for Persons in Care Office as follows:
Access Line: (204) 786-7132 (or toll free: 1-800-855-0511)
Fax: (204) 775-8055
E-mail: [email protected]
Web site: www.gov.mb.ca/health/protection
Veteran Residents
Veterans Affairs Canada (VAC) Client Services provides support to Veterans both in the community and while a resident at Deer Lodge Centre. Social Work can help make arrangements for a VAC Counselor. Also, Veterans can contact the Veterans Ombudsman at 1-877-330-4343.
Ethics Committee
What is Ethics?
Ethics is concerned with morals and values. In health care settings, ethical dilemmas arise when the “right thing to do” is unclear, or when people are in moral disagreement about what is best for a Patient or Resident.
Who We Are
The Ethics Committee is comprised of a diverse group of individuals from a range of backgrounds and experience including Medicine, Law, Nursing and Allied Health. Members of the Committee have received additional training in Ethics by the Winnipeg Regional Health Authority.
How to Make a Referral
Residents/Patients, family members, volunteers and staff are all welcome to contact the Ethics Committee. All referrals will be kept confidential.
A referral can be made by filling out the Request for Ethics Consult form located within your department or on your unit. Please return the form in the attached envelope to the Main Switchboard.
You will be contacted by a member of the Committee to further discuss your question or concern.
Personal Health Information Act
The Manitoba Personal Health Information Act (PHIA) ensures that your personal health information is protected. At Deer Lodge Centre, we believe your health is a private matter. We collect, record, store, use or disclose any fact about you and your health in keeping with Manitoba’s PHIA. Personal health information includes your name, address, and Personal Health Identification Number (PHIN); facts about your health, health care history and the care you have been given; and facts about payment for your health care. Under this law, you have the right to:
- Access your personal health information and health records
- Request corrections to your records
- Have your information kept confidential
- Make a complaint to Manitoba’s Ombudsman’s Office about access to your personal health information, or about how it is collected, stored, used, or disclosed to others.
If you would like to know more about the Personal Health Information Act call the Centre’s Privacy Officer at 204-831-2164.
Health Care Decisions
Goals of Care planning is a way to prepare for the decisions that will need to be made about your future or potential end of life care and medical treatment. When making a plan, remember that you have the right to accept or to refuse any health care treatment. What is right for someone else may or may not be acceptable to you.
The staff of the Centre wants to be sure the care they are providing is what you want, especially if your health declines and you may be unable to speak for yourself.
There are several ways to make your wishes known.
- You will be asked to work with staff in developing a Goals of Care Plan. This plan is a summary of the care and treatment that everyone is in agreement with following discussion about what is possible and what you prefer.
- Tell your family or person (s) you trust what you your concerns are and what care you want and do not want. The staff will ask your family or person (s) you trust for direction if you cannot speak for yourself.
Contact the social worker assigned to your unit or a unit nurse for information.
Emergency Response
Deer Lodge Centre has limited capacity to respond to emergencies. If as part of your advance care plan you indicate a wish to be resuscitated if your heart stops, we will call 911. Our response team will provide basic life support until the paramedics can arrive and transport you to the closest emergency department.
Use of Restraints
It is important to balance the risk of using restraint against not using restraint. It is important to ask what alternatives have been tried. The risks of using restraints may be greater than the risks of falling or wandering. When restraints are removed there may still be falls, but research studies show there is no increase in the number of falls with serious injury.
Chemical restraints are medications that given to an individual for the purpose of inhibiting a behavior that is believed to be a risk to themselves or others. Some of the reasons a resident may need these medications is
to prevent physical or verbal aggression, agitation or uncooperative behaviors. This includes (but is not limited to):
• sedatives
• hypnotics
• antipsychotics
• antidepressants
*When medication is being used to treat an existing mental health disorder this is not considered a chemical restraint.
• Chemical restraints must be reviewed by the interdisciplinary team every 90 days as well as reviewed during medication review with the pharmacist and physician.
• Family or substitute decision maker must be informed and in agreement of the use of the chemical restraint.
Information on Side Rail Use
Every resident at Deer Lodge Centre deserves a safe and comfortable sleeping and bed environment. To achieve a safe bed environment reducing side rail use may be in the best interests of the resident’s health and safety. Recent research has shown the use of side rails can increase the residents’ risk of entrapment, serious injury or death rather than prevent it.
Each resident is assessed by the interdisciplinary team to find out if side rails are necessary and that other alternatives have been tried first. Every resident responds to different alternatives in various ways and no one method will always work.
Residents, families and the interdisciplinary team can together achieve the goal of a safe and comfortable sleeping and bed environment.
Falls Prevention
Deer Lodge Centre is committed to maintain mobility and independence in a safe manner. Mobility includes moving around in bed; standing; transferring; propelling in a wheelchair and walking. The care team will identify risks related to mobility and will work together with residents/patients and their families to minimize the risk of injury.
Environment and Safety
Deer Lodge Centre is committed to providing and keeping a safe and healthy environment for its patients, residents, visitors, volunteers and staff. Workplace hazards are identified and addressed and all safety, health and environmental requirements are met or exceeded.
Deer Lodge Centre believes in encouraging patients and residents to move throughout the Centre with as much freedom as they wish. For our protection and safety, all hallways and washrooms are equipped with safety handrails. The Centre has an electronic security system to prevent those patient and residents at risk of getting lost from wandering out of the building. This alerts staff when an individual who is at risk to leave the Centre.