Sudden move upsets geriatric centre resident
A resident of the Maimonides Geriatric Centre says she felt “displaced” and “violated” after being given 30 minutes to pack what personal belongings she “really needed” into a single box before being moved to another room in the Côte-st-luc long-term care centre.
Beverly Spanier said that her remaining possessions, including documents such as her will and income-tax papers, her refrigerator and microwave, her clothing and the pictures and sculptures decorating her fifth-floor room were all packed up after she was moved and placed in storage. The artist and retired high-school teacher is one of 57 residents of the 380-bed facility who was moved.
“They gave us one little box and everything else was taken,” she said in an interview. “People were screaming.”
Spanier, 75, said the scene made her think of her late father, packing what he could into a suitcase as he fled his home in Germany ahead of the Nazis.
A spokesman for the health authority responsible for Maimonides, the CIUSSS du Centre-Ouest-de-l’île-de-montréal, explained Friday that the May 28 move was intended to control the spread of COVID -19 and that, as a result, the infection rate has decreased.
Maimonides has been overwhelmed with COVID-19 cases since May. A total of 113 residents and at least 39 staff tested positive for the virus and 34 residents who tested positive have died.
Like other long-term care centres, Maimonides is set up as an environment that resembles, as much as possible, the residents’ former homes — with their art on the walls and other personal items in their rooms. It “is not set up in a way to facilitate best practice in managing the virus and controlling its spread,” CIUSSS spokesman Carl Thériault said on Friday. That, and the level of COVID -positive residents on May 28, led the CIUSSS infection prevention and control team to recommend that the fifth, sixth and seventh floors be converted into “a more hospital-like setting.”
“This would allow the centre to properly disinfect the rooms and move residents as needed to ensure appropriate care,” he said. It also meant the personal belongings of residents needed to be packed and moved from the rooms.
Spanier, who has spinal stenosis and is paralyzed from the waist down, said she knew residents would be moved — but not precisely when. She warned nurses that “it will make us feel very disoriented.”
When the time for the move did come, in the late afternoon, she had only 30 minutes’ notice before being moved, in her bed, to another area of the fifth floor. She tossed her purse and wallet, her breathing pumps and a few personal hygiene items into the box, but left a lot behind.
“I didn’t have time to think it through. They have my income tax papers, my will. Private letters, private pictures: How would you feel inside? I felt violated.
“They packed our clothes. I was specifically told that we are to wear nightgowns only because we can’t use the laundry machines,” she said. “I’m wearing clothing now only because a friend brought me some.”
Spanier was so upset that she called 911 for police “to witness what they were doing.” Two officers spoke with a head nurse and then came to see her. “I felt much much better afterward,” she said.
Thériault said administrators understand that the move was upsetting for residents “and we made every effort to support and reassure them.”
Spanier said she feels “like a refugee.” She doesn’t know when or if she will be moved back to her room.
“Whatever gave you comfort is gone,” she said. “And they don’t have any respect for the people who live here.”