Denial of home care services to woman with ALS

Ballestexistenz and Reunify Gally are posting about Minna, who has ALS and is being denied services by an agency. Minna says it's because she complained that nurses were not following her doctor's orders. She was on a prolonged hunger strike, although she has started eating again, but is still being neglected.

Minna Mettinen- Kekalainen, 42, has fought for years to keep amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) from preventing her from doing the things she loves -- skydiving, rowing and raising two children.

But she no longer has it in her to fight a provincial organization she says is refusing to help her when she is at her weakest.

Mettinen-Kekalainen is alone, bedridden or confined to a wheelchair, unable to change her adult diapers or bathe herself, and in constant pain.

Her only source of nutrition is the feeding tube in her stomach, but she is refusing to let friends administer the four cans of supplement she should be receiving daily. via thesudburystar.com

Andrea has appealed for help over at Reunify Gally and listed ways you can help.

The agency is not releasing information, citing confidentiality reasons.

Mettinen-Kekalainen told The Sudbury Star last week she threatened to report the nurses to the Ontario College of Nurses because they were not giving her the care her doctor ordered.

She and friend Jason Bushie say the nursing agency and the Community Care Access Centre have deemed that harassing behaviour.

The truth in the dispute may never be known. What is evident is that Mettinen-Kekalainen seems destined to spend her last days in living conditions that would be considered unfit if a dog were subjected to them.