A hint of what’s ahead
A gentle human touch, one that finds a balance between safety and compassion
Forty-five years.
Four and a half decades ago it was 1973. The Americans were still caught in the muck that was the killing fields of Vietnam. They were still two years away from giving up and bolting.
They didn’t yet realize just how dangerous their president, Richard Nixon, really was. He was a year away from being forced to quit.
Curious George was a popular gift with kids. A huge thoroughbred horse called Secretariat would win three races that spring, claiming the first Triple Crown in 25 years.
If you drove to the grocery store, you were paying about 46 cents a gallon for gas that May. That’s about 10 cents a litre.
And Jim Munves married Barbara, a marriage that has lasted to this day.
He’s 96. She is 87. Their story would normally be one featured in newspapers and on websites as part of their Valentine’s Day coverage.
Not this year. Instead, their story is a cautionary tale about the tidal wave of old age just beginning to crash ashore across this country, courtesy of the baby boomers born after the Second World War.
Their story points out how far we need to go – quickly – to cope with that wave in a way that is both just, and humane.
Barbara, who suffers from dementia, lives in Atlantic Baptist Home. She went there when Jim required hip replacement surgery, but it wasn’t supposed to be a permanent move from their Charlottetown home.
Once he’d recovered, Jim thought he could bring her home. He was wrong.
He only realized their lives was changed when he learned the province had issued an emergency order preventing him from taking her out, even for a few hours in the afternoon, Guardian reporter Mitchell MacDonald explained in a recent story in this newspaper.
“She’s not allowed out of there. She’s a prisoner,” Jim said. “She’s my whole life, and I wouldn’t want to live without her…We’ve had a lovely life and we deserve to end our days together without this intrusion.”
Jim can visit, and he does every day from noon until 7 p.m., but outings like the one he planned to a P.E.I. Symphony performance for their anniversary are out. The emotional toll is obvious.
“She’s miserable about it, she can’t come home, she loves our cat, Lucy, and she can’t see the cat,” said Jim.
Why has this happened? There are “reasonable grounds to believe there is considerable risk of immediate serious harm,” says the order signed by the provincial health minister.
The province recommended hiring a live-in caretaker, moving the couple’s bedroom down a floor and upgrading the security system. Jim says he did all that. Yet, they’re still apart.
“Care plans and interventions are given careful attention based on the best interest and needs of the vulnerable adult. It is important that all safety issue(s) are addressed before someone can safely return home,” Health P.E.I. said of situations like this.
Situations like this are likely to become increasingly frequent as our population grows older. It’s no secret the elderly use the health-care system more than the young.
Dealing with the needs of those coping with their changing lives requires a gentle human touch, one that finds a balance between safety and compassion. Just ask Jim and Barbara.