Thank you for serving on the MBS Board

It is our honor to thank the members of the Mennonite Benevolent Society Board for their service at the end of their term. Thank you to Rose Bergen and Victor Dyck for their faithful service in providing direction to the Mennonite Benevolent Society.

The Mennonite Benevolent Society is a non-profit organization that has provided direction to Menno Place since its beginnings in 1953.

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Thank you to Victor Dyck for long-service on the Mennonite Benevolent Society Board. Certificate presented by Gerd Bartel, MBS Board President.

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Thank you to Rose Bergen for serving on the Mennonite Benevolent Society Board. Certificate presented by Gerd Bartel, MBS Board President.

They tell a GREAT fish story!

Residents of Menno Place have enjoyed the hospitality and thrill of fishing at the Trout Creek Farm in Mission, BC. Take a look at one fishing trip that took place in June. Thank you to the owner of Trout Creek Farm for opening up the opportunity to come fishing.

Celebrating Pastoral Care Volunteers

Thank you to the many people who volunteer their time and talents to provide pastoral and spiritual care for the residents at Menno Place. A special celebration and thank you was held to share appreciation for the faithful people who are a valued part of our Pastoral Care Team. The luncheon was a time to hear from Don Klassen and Betty Horch about their experiences here at Menno Place as volunteers in this area. They shared how this ministry has brought them joy, friendship and meaning as they meet one-on-one with residents who request these visits.

Other volunteers share their talents through music, leading worship services, prayer meetings and Bible Studies. Residents love and appreciate the opportunity to have a regular visitor, a regular worship service and spiritual support as they make their way

Are you interested in joining the Pastoral Care Volunteer Team?

We have training each fall. Online applications are received any time throughout the year.

Father’s Day Brunch at The Apartments

What a celebration for Father’s Day! Over 40 men joined together in the Terrace East Dining Room to be honoured by our staff. David Dick, Chaplain, said a blessing over the men and a prayer. Poems were read and the men enjoyed a delicious brunch of Eggs Benedict, Hashed Potatoes and fresh fruit.

Here’s a special poem that was read….

A LETTER TO MY FATHER

I could start by thanking you for the easy things…My bed, my clothes and the food that you put on the table when I was young.

For coaching my baseball team, swinging me in the air as we walked down the road and for the vacations pulled together on a shoestring budget.

The patience, love and understanding that you showed me in accepting me as I was… and not trying to push me into being a more societally ‘typical’ male. But somehow that feels like I’ve barely scratched the surface.

What I really want to thank you for is all of the small decisions that you made on a daily basis that I will never know about.

I want to thank you for the times that I cried as a baby, and you got up out of bed to hold me because you wanted to let mom sleep.

I want to thank you for all of the bedtime stories that you read to me, even on those days you’d put in extra hours at work. A lesser man would have outsourced the ‘responsibility’ to his wife and gone straight to bed… but you chose not to.

I want to thank you for the times that you let me see you cry, so I could understand that when my friends told me that “boys don’t cry,” they weren’t telling the truth.

I want to thank you for how you handled the rough patches in your life, as you turned further into the love of your family when you could have just as easily closed off to us.

I want to thank you for stopping old habits that weren’t serving you (like smoking) in favor of being a better role model.

I want to thank you for all of the times that you carried me on your shoulders, even when I was getting too big to be up there.

I want to thank you for having and resolving disagreements with my mother in front of me as a child, so I could grow up to know that conflict in relationships is not only inevitable, but something to be embraced and seen as an opportunity to further grow together.

I want to thank you for every time you kissed, hugged, or complimented mom, my siblings, and I even before my brain was storing memories… for every single one of those moments is locked in my mind and my heart forever.

I want to thank you for being the best possible role model I could have hoped for. And for all of the moment to moment tiny decisions that you made, that I will never know about, that forged you into the man, and the father, that you became.

I love you, dad.

Living Waters Garden Grand Opening Celebration

The Living Waters Garden was officially opened on June 12th. The garden was the dream of a donor who desires to leave a legacy for the enjoyment and create a place for connection with God and others. Mayor Henry Braun, CEO Karen Baillie, MBS Board President Gerd Bartel, Chaplain Ingrid Schultz and Chaplain David Dick shared their words and blessing as we officially opened the Living Waters Garden.

Take a walk around the campus and enjoy the Living Waters Garden – located between Primrose Gardens and Terrace East on Primrose Street.

The theme verse for the Living Waters Garden is John 7:38

Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, ‘Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.’”

Sharon Simpson, Director of Communications wrote about the Living Waters Garden in The Light Magazine June 2015 Issue – Click here to read.

Menno Place Annual Report 2015

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Happy Father’s Day – June 19th – Parties all over the campus!

Fathers Day Menno PlaceHome

W1 – 2:30pm: Ties and Pies – Thomas the One Man Band

W2: 2:30pm: Ties and Pies – Music by Cathy

E1 – 2:00pm: Hans Fedrau Music

E2 – 2:00pm – Ties and Pies – George Ellington as Frank Sinatra

 

Hospital

For everyone – 2pm – Johnny Cash Band in E1

 

The Apartments

8:30am – Men’s Breakfast – Terrace East Dining Room

Care to Chat BC – Debunking the Myths and Misconceptions of BC’s Continuing Care Sector

karen-baillieKaren Baillie, CEO of Menno Place (2nd from right beside Colin Hansen) weighs in on the conversation that was started by the BC Care Providers Association when they commissioned a public opinion poll to discover what more than 800 British Columbians believe at seniors care in our province.

The results included in the presentation are based on an online study conducted from March 25 to March 29th by Insights West and BC Care Providers Association.

Karen shared that her biggest surprise from the survey results were that most British Columbians believe care homes are allocated $69 on average to provide meals to residents on a daily basis. In fact, care homes are allocated between $6-$7 per day to provide residents with meals.

Other myths that are believed by British Columbians include:

  1. Myth: Wait times for residential care in BC have increase or are increasing. In reality, the median wait time has decreased in the past decade from 1 year to 45 days.
  2. Myth: Seniors are more likely to be abused in residential care facilities than while receiving care at home. Although the public hears more reports about senior abuse, there is no quantifiable data to prove that incidents of physical of financial abuse has increased in the past decade. All care providers record, investigate and track all incidents of abuse reported in their facility.
  3. Myth: Most of the food at residential care homes is cooked offsite and brought into care homes each day. Menno Place has five kitchens on campus. We are cooking every meal here in our kitchens and asking our residents for their feedback through Resident Choice meals and menu planning.

For the complete survey results, click here.

Global BC1 Covered the story of the Myths and Realities of Senior Care in British Columbia.

Click here to see the media coverage surround the survey and the Care to Chat session.

Menno Place responds to Seniors Advocate Report

Isobel Mackenzie, BC’s Seniors Advocate recently released her third report entitled Placement, Drugs and Therapy … We Can Do Better outlining three findings that identify systemic issues in the care of 25,000 seniors who are living in residential care or receiving home care in British Columbia. Issues identified by the Office of the Seniors Advocate (OSA):

  1. Premature admissions to residential care (still capable of living independently)
  2. Use of antipsychotic medications and anti-depressants
  3. Percentage of seniors who received therapy (recreational, occupational, speech-language, physiotherapy) in the past 7 days

How is Menno Place responding to the concerns raised by the Seniors Advocate?

It is important to thank our Seniors Advocate for her candid and poignant report using InterRAI data (see below) that has recently become available for this type of analysis. She identified issues that we have been working on at Menno Place for some time. Her advocacy for seniors will encourage provincial and regional conversations and initiatives. It will also encourage increased individual advocacy of those who love a senior in residential care. We welcome all levels of advocacy as this provides evidence for improvement and is in line with our model of person-centred care.

1. Inappropriate Placement in Residential Care

Menno Place works together with the Fraser Health Authority to ensure that residents who move in fit the parameters of residential care and benefit significantly from the support that is offered at Menno Place.

Menno Place offers a full spectrum of care with 347 Residential Care beds, 40 Fraser Health subsidized Assisted Living Apartments, 38 Private-Pay Assisted Living Apartments and 232 apartment suites for Independent Living with support. This Campus-of-Care model supports appropriate levels of care for residents and tenants. There are multiple care options available for seniors who live on the Menno Place campus.

2. Use of antipsychotic medications and anti-depressants

Antipsychotic Medications

Menno Place is a member organization of the BC Care Providers Association (BCCPA). BCCPA members care for over 11,000 seniors in residential and assisted living in British Columbia.

In 2013, BCCPA issued the report, Best Practices Guide for Safely Reducing Anti-Psychotic Drug Use in Residential Care. The Seniors Advocate referenced this as a commendable effort and as an example of how the overuse of antipsychotic drugs is already a major concern in the industry. Residential Care facilities, like Menno Place, are actively working to reduce the overuse of antipsychotic drugs and are among those who have seen a reduction from 50% of residents prescribed an antipsychotic in 2010/11 to 34% in 2013. We continue to work on reducing and anticipate further decreases through 2014 and 2015.

The Seniors Advocate notes in her report that the reduction in anitpsychotic drug from 50% – 34% is laudible, but is still higher than other provinces. We appreciate her acknowledgement of the efforts that residential care providers in British Columbia have already made great strides forward in this area.

Initiatives to reduce the use of antipsychotic drugs at Menno Place include:

  • Participation by one of our medical directors (doctor) in the collaborative initiative, Call for Less Antipsychotics in Residential Care (CLeAR) spearheaded in June 2013 by the BC Patient Safety Quality Council. Through this initiative, the medical director in collaboration with the health care team brings best practices to Menno Place.
  • Exemplary standing with Accreditation Canada which includes following the Required Organization Practice (ROP): Medication Reconciliation at Care Transitions. This required practice involves the resident, family or caregiver (as appropriate) and the clinical team to generate the Best Possible Medication History (BPMH) for each resident, enabling the organization to reconcile medications. We use this opportunity to identify overuse of multiple prescriptions (polypharmacy) or antipsychotics drugs.
  • Recognition that some residents are already be on prescribed anti-psychotic medications upon moving into Menno Place. Care plans include the Fraser Health Reducing Risks of Polypharmacy Initiative. This involves assessing if a prescribed drug can be changed to one with fewer side effects, decreased or discontinued.
  • RAI assessments for each resident are done quarterly. These assessments give opportunity to assess appropriate medications as well as the reduction of antipsychotic medications. These are done more frequently if there is a significant change.
  • Recent access to the InterRAI data is allowing us to benchmark our indicators, identify issues, analyze, compare with others in our field and make evidence-based improvements.

Use of anti-depressants

Menno Place recognizes that one of the most common mental health problems among our residents is depression.

Initiatives to reduce the use of anti-depressants at Menno Place include:

  • Active recreation therapy programs (see recreation calendars for details), which includes a wide variety of interactive and entertainment options. Residents are encouraged to participate in pet visits, Concerts in Care, birthday parties, resident council meetings, bus trips and a wide variety of daily activities.
  • Our extensive volunteer program (more than 250 volunteers giving 12,000 hours) engage residents in conversation, games and transport to activities.
  • Music therapy and ballet therapy provide significant opportunities for residents to engage in life-giving arts-based therapies.
  • Our Music Project is an initiative to provide residents with mp3 players to listen to favorite music, sing along and experience the profound positive benefit of personalized music.
  • Our latest Garden Project (the size of a residential lot) will open in Spring 2015 – with benches to relax, water features and a beautiful gazebo. It complements our secure 1-acre courtyard, our secure-unit garden and our secure west garden.
  • Spiritual care is a focus at Menno Place providing residents with opportunities to express and expand their faith including one-on-one visits, chapel services, special programs, hymn sing-a-longs and regular Bible Study groups. This has proven to be a great source of hope and vitality.

3. Providing Rehabilitative Therapy for Residents

With respect to the need for an increase in physiotherapy, occupational therapy, speech therapy and recreational therapy, we welcome any additional funding for these therapies that may result from the Seniors Advocate’s report. We invite the OSA to consider the addition of music therapy to this list of vital services for seniors. New research and initiatives, such as Music & Memory have seen remarkable re-awakenings among those who suffer from dementia. Our own initiatives with music therapy (one-on-one and in groups) as well as music-based programs such as Concerts in Care have proven to bring considerable benefit to our residents.

For most residential care facilities, as it is with Menno Place, our government funding is the primary hurdle to providing extensive rehabilitative therapies. Funded at less than the rate of inflation, we are constantly working to balance our budget. Greater funding for rehabilitative therapies would open the door to significant benefits for our residents.

What can you do if you have questions about the prescriptions of your loved one who lives at Menno Place?

Here are some steps that will help you to understand the individualized care that your loved one is receiving at Menno Place:

  1. Identify if you have permission to be involved in the health care decisions of your family member. We can only discuss medical information with the resident or their designated alternate substitute decision maker
  2. Book a meeting with the Director of Care (DOC). The DOC provides direction, leadership and best practices to the nursing and care teams in a residential care facility. If you can meet in person, that is preferred.

Menno Home Director of Care: Cyndy Gabriel
Phone Reception to book an appointment: 604.853.2411

Menno Hospital Director of Care: Tami Johnson
Phone Reception to book an appointment: 604.859.7631

How did the Office of the Seniors Advocate Gather Information for this report?

Information gathered through RAI-MDS

In her report, the Seniors Advocate shares initial health assessment data gathered through the InterRAI Resident Assessment Instrument – Minimum Data Set 2.0 (RAI-MDS 2.0), also referred to as “RAI” (pronounce ‘rye’). Each resident assessment data is submitted to the Canadian Institute of Health Information, “CIHI” (pronounce ‘kye-high’).

This information gathered from each resident prior to entering a care facility (and done quarterly or when there is a significant change) forms the data-set upon which we can create benchmarks, comparisons by province and care facility as well as note national, provincial and regional trends.

The InterRAI Resident Assessment has been used in BC since 2009 but it hasn’t been until recently that this comprehensive data gathering provided The Office of the Seniors Advocate (OSA) with the benchmarks and cross-country comparisons used in the report. We have also recently gained access to this same data-set that compares residential care facilities across the province. We welcome this ability to benchmark in our field.

Resources

BC Seniors Advocate Reports

A soldier and a Dutch nurse

Today, two residents at Menno Place celebrated the 70th anniversary of the Liberation of Netherlands from German occupation during the second world war. Gera, a 20 year old at the time thanked her dear friend (and liberator), Bruce, a Canadian soldier who fought to liberate Netherlands from German occupation. More than 7,600 Canadians died in the nine dreadful months it took to liberate the Netherlands. Gera, age 20 on May 5, 1945, will never forget the day that they were free. Hungry, war-tired and filled with gratitude, they celebrated with tears and joy. Bruce walked through the streets of the Netherlands sharing smiles and gratitude from the dutch people. One woman was out on her patio putting laundry on the line. She smiled from ear to ear at Bruce. I’ll never forget how that felt, he says. It was the best feeling in the world.

Bruce shows us his medals of service – from France, Canada and the UK. Along with his service medals, he shares a “Thank You Canada” medal that he received in 1945. Brought together in their home at Menno Place, Bruce and Gera share memories and gratitude. Gera can’t believe that it is almost the 70 year anniversary of a day that forever changed her life. She affectionately smiles at Bruce – grateful that, at 98 years old, he is here to thank.