“There was no one to comfort her, to explain to her, that was the most heartbreaking thing for me. And she really felt abandoned, that’s for sure,” says Nicole Jaouich as she describes her mother’s last days in a nursing home in Quebec.
Her mother, Hilda Zlataroff, was 102 years old and suffering from dementia when Covid-19 was first detected at her long-term care center in March last year.
Her family says she did not die from the virus, but, like a camera in the room placed there by her family’s painful documentation, she wasted it.
Zlataroff could not feed himself without assistance and the video, provided to CNN by his family, shows him at times seemingly painful, confusing, too weak to have even a glass of water.
“It was heartbreaking for me to know that he was not there and that for the last six weeks of his life he starved to death,” Jaouich said as he shared the anguish of seeing his mother suffer on camera, but was banned. go to attention. at home to help.
“I was looking at my mom through the camera and breathing so hard it looked like I was in pain,” she said.
The Canadian military came to help
For weeks after the first initial closures last winter, the situation of dozens of nursing homes across the country, both public and private, became so dire that by the end of April it was rapidly becoming a humanitarian crisis. . Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau called on troops to help in some long-term care centers in the provinces of Ontario and Quebec.
To date, nearly 22,000 Canadians have died from Covid-19. Many of the families of thousands of elderly people who died in these nursing homes say it is now time to answer these difficult questions.
The coronavirus hit hard care homes with little personality
The crisis began in the early days of the pandemic in March, when provincial health officials across Canada sealed hundreds of facilities to relatives and visitors, believing they were protecting the most vulnerable from the virus.
But within weeks, families were horrified to learn that many of these facilities, which already had few chronic staff, were in a state of what they described as chaotic.
“It was pretty shocking to see what was going on there, for several days people can’t get their loved ones,” Nadia Sbaihi said in an interview with CNN about her grandfather’s death.
Rodrigue Quesnel was 94 years old when he died of Covid-19. He contracted the virus at a long-term care center outside of Montreal. His family describes him as “bigger than life” and with a healthy mind, but he died of the virus a few days ago last spring.
“If I’m sorry about anything these last few days it’s that we were robbed, especially in the first wave where we weren’t allowed to see our loved ones and our loved ones were dying alone,” Sbaihi says.
Some residents were left with dirty clothes and sheets for hours, according to the report
Covid-19 quickly spread to hundreds of long-term care facilities across Canada. In June, the Public Health Agency of Canada recognized that 4 out of 5 Covid-19-related deaths were in long-term care homes.
“This government decision to prevent family caregivers from entering and not providing adequate staff to provide even the most basic care, is an unforgivable decision,” says Patrick Martin-Ménard, a lawyer who represents families in a forensic investigation. underway in Quebec.
But perhaps most shocking was a blunt and tragic assessment by the Canadian military after they were sent to some of these facilities.
Published in May in the province of Ontario, the report documents allegations of abuse and gross negligence in at least five care homes.
It documents “terrible” conditions in which residents did not bathe for days, vulnerable seniors were kept in dirty clothes and sheets for hours, and where Covid-19 patients were allowed to walk.
He accuses five long-term care centers in the Toronto area of having inadequate hygiene and disinfection practices and alleges that staff ignored residents who cried in pain, sometimes for hours.
The Ontario prime minister was quite emotional when asked about the report and promised there would be “justice” and “accountability”.
“It’s heartbreaking, horrible, it’s shocking that this can happen here in Canada. It’s heartbreaking and reading these reports is the hardest thing I’ve done as prime minister,” Doug Ford told a news conference in May.
However, Ontario public health officials reported last week that deaths in Ontario long-term care homes from the second wave of Covid-19, which began in September, have now surpassed those of the first wave.
Both the provinces of Ontario and Quebec, where the majority of deaths occurred in residences, have introduced new training programs and increased salaries and benefits for staff at these facilities.
“I think we need to take a very long look at ourselves collectively and think about how we have treated our large population, not just during the pandemic, but in the last ten, twenty, thirty years,” Martin says. -Menard.
Families hope the investigations will regain a sense of dignity
Sbaihi believes that the treatment of many of his loved ones in care homes was inhumane. She and other family members say what should come from multiple investigations, still ongoing, is to finally give seniors the attention and dignity they deserve.
“He won’t get anyone back, but I hope we can have answers … to give voice to those who didn’t have it or who didn’t hear the voices,” he says.
Jaouich says his mother would not have wanted him to accept what happened to thousands of elderly people in these nursing homes. And he says he is grateful that he finally saw his mother in his last hours and gave her the comfort she lacked in the last weeks of her life.
“And I took her hand, her hands were so cold and I was warming her hands and she shook my hand … three times. And it was such a touching moment for me, and I said ‘Mummy than not to abandon you. “