Man fears for wife’s life in French-only facility
Woman in her 80s suffers from dementia, cannot communicate with nursing staff
George Zeliotis says he fears for his wife’s life if she is forced to go back to an east-end, French-only nursing home.
Last week, Zeliotis made headlines denouncing the nursing home where his 80-year-old wife, Alexandra Stefanatos, who has dementia, was denied care in English.
Earlier this week, Stefanatos was hospitalized in the emergency department of Hôpital Maisonneuve-Rosemont with pneumonia.
“Now, they want to send her back to a place where they don’t speak a word of English,” Zeliotis said. “Yesterday, I was talking to a compassionate nurse who said they would keep her till Sunday. Until a spot opens in (a bilingual facility.) The next day, another nurse said they have a requisition to send her back today.
“She’s going to die if she goes back there.”
Zeliotis said his wife cannot go back to a nursing facility where no one understands her.
“She gets mad and doesn’t cooperate with them because she doesn’t understand what they tell her,” he said of CHSLD Benjamin-Viger-Rousselot where his wife is currently living.
When Zeliotis called the CHSLD about English-language services, a nurse told him in French, “This is Quebec. We speak French in Quebec.”
Zeliotis said he was promised repeatedly by a social worker that his wife would be placed in a bilingual public nursing home, such as the Grace Dart Extended Care Centre. Zeliotis said he asked for a transfer to Grace Dart but was told there is no room there.
Health Minister Gaétan Barrette pledged exactly one week ago to remedy a “totally unacceptable situation” by transferring Stefanatos to a bilingual institution where the staff can speak to her in English.
Initially heartened by the minister’s remarks, Zeliotis now says he is feeling discouraged because of his wife’s deteriorating health condition. He worries she won’t survive.
Zeliotis said he will not stop fighting for dignified care for his wife of nearly 60 years.
Zeliotis, now 87, got a Supreme Court of Canada ruling for shorter surgical wait times for all Canadians in his battle with Quebec’s health-care system. The Supreme Court ruled in 2006 that Zeliotis’s lengthy wait time violated his Charter rights, and soon after both Ottawa and Quebec established wait-time guarantees for certain elective surgeries.
Anglophone-rights advocates say the couple’s plight is common for elderly English-speaking Quebecers who find it increasingly difficult to receive care in their mother tongue in the province’s network of nursing homes.
The province’s Health Department is aware of the case, said Barrette’s press attaché, Catherine Audet.
Reached late Wednesday afternoon, Barrette said he has asked Montreal health officials to find a solution as quickly as possible. In the meantime, at least one bilingual person is to work at the CHSLD so patients’ needs are taken into consideration, he said. However, Barrette said he expects to have a bed in an English-language facility for Stefanatos within the next few days, “or hours.”
“We’re expecting a spot in the Grace Dart centre, and there are two other possibilities,” Barrette said.