Elizabeth Ruf visits her mother in the hospital every morning before work. The daughter wishes her mother could leave.
Ruf says her 73-year-old mother Antonia Ruf has been at Seven Oaks Hospital for two months. Ruf believes her mom seems to be getting stronger because of the physiotherapy Elizabeth has been attempting to do with her mom. But Ruf is upset the hospital team is refusing to provide her mother with physiotherapy.
“They keep telling me they want to send her home. But at the same time, they won’t send her home because she’s not strong enough,” Ruf says. “She seems to be improving, but she needs more than I can provide.”
Antonia Ruf first went to Seven Oaks Hospital on Jan. 13 because she had a flu, which turned into pneumonia. Elizabeth says her mother was released because her condition improved, but shortly after arriving home, her mother needed to return to the hospital.
“She was at home for maybe 10 minutes and then she fell and we had to take her back to hospital,” Ruf said, “And she’s been in the hospital since.”
Ruf says when her mom returned to the hospital, the team helping her mom met with her family. According to Ruf, the team agreed to do physiotherapy with her mom. But physio treatment has stopped.
“They came once a day for two weeks. It was some sort of ‘trial period’ as they put it. And they made her get up a couple of times and that was it,” Ruf said. “And they decided because she wasn’t making enough progress, that they were going to discontinue the physiotherapy.”
Ruf believes her mother would be in better care if she was home with her.
“If they were working with her and you know, doing something to strengthen her legs here, I would say, definitely, stay here, it’s better for you. But they’re not.”
Since CTV News has reached out to the Winnipeg Regional Health Authority about Ruf’s case, Elizabeth Ruf says the health authority called her to set up a family meeting. That meeting is scheduled for March 23.
Ruf says an occupational therapist also called her Tuesday afternoon saying her mother can’t go home without a Hoyer lift, a sling lift used for a patient with mobility issues.
In a statement to CTV News, the WRHA said, “Based on clinical advice, the patient cannot be safely discharged into her home environment based on her current care needs. Her care team at Seven Oaks continues to reach out to the family to discuss next steps and we will be providing this detail in writing to the family by the end of the day.”
