Accountability and responsibility lacking in nursing home industry
Richard Wagamese had a revealing story for the Calgary Herald about accountability and the preventable death of a friend's loved one at a nursing home. Below are excerpts and a summary of that tragic story. The mother of one of his friends was found frozen to death outside the nursing home the day after Christmas. She was 84 year-old and had suffered from Alzheimer's disease. Her name was Juliette (Julie) Bombardier and she was a great-grandmother, grandmother, wife, friend, confidante and valued member of her community.
Mr. Wagamese mentions that Julie inexplicably managed to get out of doors that were ostensibly locked, but are often propped open by staff who pop outside for a smoke. In the early morning hours, dressed in a nightgown, she froze to death in a snowdrift, a few yards from that door. She died there, alone and unprotected. Nearly three hours after the search for her was initiated, my friends were there when she was discovered.
The real tragedy according to Mr. Wagamese in Julie's death is not the loss itself. It's the refusal of the company that runs the nursing home to take responsibility. Instead of saying, "there was a failure in our system that resulted in a death and we're taking immediate steps to prevent it happening again" and honouring the loss of Juliette Bombardier, they rely on the standard "we're conducting our own internal investigation". There doesn't need to be an investigation. The system failed. Period.
The obfuscation and shrugging off of direct responsibility is a dishonouring of Julie's death and a dishonouring of her family's grief.
They tell us that all the doors were locked until staff had finished their search of the building. What they are asking all of us to believe is that an 84-year-old dementia patient managed to negotiate her way through a secure facility, passed trained supervisory staff, out a locked door and then somehow managed to lock it behind herself again and froze to death.
To suggest we believe that is a dishonouring of everyone. There are a lot of seniors in care in such facilities all across the country. They are not just Alzheimer's patients, stroke victims, addled, debilitated, frail, helpless or needy. They're somebody's grandmother, somebody's mother and somebody's friend. They are not numbers in a ledger, not a part of somebody's financial bottom line -- they are a part of our collective history and they are valuable.
Richard Wagamese, a former Calgary Herald columnist, is the 2007 recipient of the Canadian Authors Association Award for fiction and a former National Newspaper Award-winning columnist.
