Quebec had plans to expand nursing home
Henri-Bradet being renovated for $4.2M, a fraction of original cost
It was billed as an investment of “great importance” when the Quebec government announced in 2007 that it would spend $20 million to nearly double the size of the Henri-Bradet nursing home in Notre-Dame-de-Grâce, adding 100 beds to accommodate the growing needs of the city’s vulnerable elderly population.
“The investments that I am announcing will translate into an improvement in the living environment of the people housed,” Lawrence Bergman, the local MNA at the time, declared in a press release. Bergman added that he was delivering the good news on behalf of Philippe Couillard, who then was serving as health minister in the previous Liberal government.
A decade later, however, HenriBradet has not been expanded despite years-long waiting lists to get into the public institution. Instead, the government has decided to renovate the facilities for $4.2 million — a fraction of the original budget. What’s more, nearly 70 Henri-Bradet residents — many of them in their 80s and 90s and suffering from dementia — will be displaced for up to a year and a half as they live in a ward at the Jewish General Hospital to make way for the renovations.
Susan Wileman, whose 90-yearold mother, Ruth Wileman, will be transferred to the Jewish General at the end of May, said the psychologically traumatic displacement of so many elderly residents would never have occurred had the government simply followed through on its plans.
“It enrages me that they decided to use the money for (Henri-Bradet’s expansion) for another purpose,” Wileman said in an interview on Thursday.
“In the end, it’s the frail elders who are put in such a bad situation. It makes me very worried for my mother and the other residents. They don’t have a voice.”
Officials with the West-Central Montreal Health authority, including executive director Lawrence Rosenberg, were not available for comment.
Julie White, Health Minister Gaétan Barrette’s press attaché, said she would have to make some inquiries before explaining why the government ultimately abandoned the planned expansion of Henri-Bradet.
In a letter to Susan Wileman, Rosenberg defended the decision to relocate the Henri-Bradet residents.
“As someone with an elderly mother of my own, I genuinely understand your concerns about relocating your mother, as well as any potentially negative effects that this might have on her health,” Rosenberg said in the letter.
“One of our most important goals is to complete the upgrade as promptly as possible and to minimize the amount of time needed for this work to be completed. We feel that the best way to do so is by relocating some residents during the (renovations), despite the unfortunate but necessary inconvenience to them and their families.
“However,” Rosenberg added, “we are well aware of how fragile some of our residents are and we are doing everything we can to lessen the impact to them.”
Wileman’s mother was initially scheduled to trade her private room at Henri-Bradet for a semiprivate one at the Jewish General at the end of May. After Wileman went public with her concerns, her mother was offered a private room at the Côte-des-Neiges hospital — an upgrade that won’t be available to most other transferred residents.
But Wileman is adamant that her mother should not have to live in limbo in an acute-care hospital and is still seeking a room in another nursing home.
“The fact that the government handled this so poorly speaks to a blatant disregard for the most vulnerable in society,” Wileman said.