Hospital Programs
By the time Ida Tesler was admitted
to Baycrest Hospital, Ben and
Hilda Katz Building, last year, she
had almost lost the will to live.
A persistent infection had
so
debilitated the 81-year-old greatgrandmother that she and her
family were ready to move her
to a nursing home. Betty Tesler
remembers her mother-in-law
being "psychologically, emotionally and physically depleted,
and had it not been for Baycrest,
she might not be here now."
Ida spent five weeks being evaluated and treated by an interdisciplinary team in the Geriatric
Assessment and Treatment Unit
(GATU) and 12 weeks as an
outpatient in the day hospital.
"GATU enables us to tease out
all the factors contributing to a
patient's problems, to educate
the patient and family about these
factors and develop a corresponding treatment and discharge
plan," explains medical director,
Dr. Shelley Veinish. "The goal is
to have people return to the community and reduce, if not eliminate, recurrent trips to hospital
emergency departments or admission to acute care hospitals."
Today, back home and with her
health greatly improved, Ida
Tesler is smiling, confident and
eager to get on with life.
Older adults, particularly if they are cognitively impaired,
find emergency departments in large general hospitals
confusing and distressing. Baycrest clients who develop
heart problems, infections, pneumonia or other urgent
conditions are treated close to home, in the Acute Care
Unit in Baycrest Hospital, where they are known and
where the focus is on geriatric care.
10
Baycrest 2008/09 Annual Report
