Dementia patient to get private assistance
The story of a Montreal man fighting for dignified care for his elderly wife has triggered an outburst of support.
Many have expressed outrage since George Zeliotis made headlines last week denouncing the nursing home where his 80-yearold wife, Alexandra Stefanatos, who has dementia, was denied care in English.
Quebec Health Minister Gaétan Barrette called the situation unacceptable, and pledged to remedy the situation. But earlier this week, Stefanatos was hospitalized in the emergency department of Hôpital Maisonneuve-Rosemont with pneumonia. Zeliotis became worried and frustrated when the hospital threatened to release her back to the nursing home. He said he feared his wife would die if forced to go back to an institution where no one understands her.
That’s when a private homecare agency stepped forward Friday to offer concrete help.
“I read your article about Mr. Zeliotis’s inability to get his wife services in English in her residence and I was appalled,” said Jennifer Boivin, a nurse and Montreal-area manager of Elizz agency.
Boivin said she was moved by the couple’s plight: “As the director ... and a nurse, I do not believe anyone should have to go through the stress he is dealing with.”
The agency is offering respite services at no cost “so Mrs. Zeliotis can have support and companionship in English.”
Boivin has scheduled support services so that someone from the agency will be at Stefanatos’s hospital bedside Friday night.
Overwhelmed by the agency’s kindness, Zeliotis became emotional over the phone. His voice cracked with tears.
“I don’t know what to say. This is over and above ... I never expected this,” Zeliotis said, his voice trailing.
The couple’s plight began in early summer when Stefanatos was hospitalized for two months with a heart condition. Also diagnosed with dementia, it became clear she could not return home. Zeliotis said he was promised repeatedly she would be placed in a public nursing home where the staff would speak to her in English. Her dementia prevents her from communicating adequately with caregivers.
“She becomes aggressive when she doesn’t understand what they tell her,” he said of CHSLD Benjamin-Viger-Rousselot, where his wife is currently living, and where she fell during her first week there, breaking four teeth and cutting her lip.
Zeliotis asked that his wife be placed at Grace Dart Extended Care Centre, a bilingual-services nursing residence that’s closer to their home, but was told there is no room there. Zeliotis told the attending physician to abstain from performing heroic measures to keep his wife alive, “because this is not a life for anyone.”
Anglophone-rights advocates say many elderly English-speaking Quebecers find it increasingly difficult to receive care in their mother tongue in nursing homes.