Couple’s last wish unfulfilled.
Restrictions, room rules prevented couple from living together: official
HALIFAX — Murdock Newhook’s last wish was to die with his wife of 62 years by his side.
Instead, the 89-year-old man died alone in his room, while his wife Frances was down the hall at Saint Vincent’s Nursing Home in Halifax.
“I thought they’d be able to say goodbye to each other in their own way and it didn’t happen,” said Barb Dejong, the Newhooks’ daughter.
The married couple, who had been living in Dartmouth with home care helping out during the day, didn’t want to be placed in a nursing home.
“The problem we were having, like a lot of other families are going through, is we couldn’t get them in anywhere together,” she said.
“My father could have went to Camp Hill, but didn’t go because he couldn’t take his wife,” said Dejong, noting her father was a member of the Canadian Armed Forces.
But then Frances Newhook fell and broke her foot and was placed at the first available nursing home. She was admitted to Saint Vincent on Sept. 20, 2018.
Murdock Newhook, who had dementia and couldn’t live on his own, was admitted to the same facility six days later.
There were no double rooms available to put the couple together, but Saint Vincent’s staff was able to put them on the same floor.
“He was at one end of the hall and she was at the other,” said a grateful Dejong.
On the morning of Oct. 26, Dejong went to the Halifax facility for her daily visit with her parents.
“They called me out into the hallway and said my father took a turn for the worse,” she said.
Dejong went down to tell her mother and brought her to Murdock’s room.
“She was upset and crying and just wanted to be with him, so we asked if they could bring her bed down,” Dejong said, adding her mother couldn’t sit in her wheelchair for more than 30 minutes.
“A couple of them said ‘I’ll look into it,’ and we never saw them again,” said Dejong.
After about 30 minutes by her husband’s bedside, Frances Newhook was in too much pain and had to be wheeled back to her own bed.
“I guess being naive, I thought maybe two or three days and he would be gone. He died the next morning,” Dejong said.
Dejong went to her mother’s room and broke the news to the 92-year-old woman.
“She gave up. She said she didn’t want to live anymore,” Dejong said.
Frances Newhook was taken down to see her husband one last time before they took him away.
She died a week later on Nov. 3.
“All she wanted to do was have them wheel her bed down and put them together so she could put her arm over and hold his hand,” Dejong said.
“They couldn’t even do that and I just don’t think it’s right. I’ve lost all faith.”
Angela Berrette, executive director of Saint Vincent’s Nursing Home, said space restrictions and room rules prevented the couple from living in the same room.
Men and women who aren’t married can’t live in the same room at the Halifax facility.
“When they came in our double rooms were already occupied, so even though you have a male and female couple come in, I can’t move the male in the existing room to the female’s room,” Berrette said.
Berrette said most of the facility’s doorways “don’t allow beds to be moved in and out,” but from her understanding, Frances was allowed to visit her husband whenever she wanted.
“The only thing we were not able to accommodate is putting her bed in the same room,” Berrette said.
Moving Murdock’s roommate to make room for Frances wasn’t possible at the time, she said.
“We can’t put people in dining rooms or in the hallway to sleep at night so we can accommodate another person, even if they are passing away. That would be inappropriate,” said Berrette.
“The team looked at many options. Unfortunately, something which seems relatively straight forward had many different moving pieces,” she said. “These are the limitations a facility faces when you don’t have enough space.”
The executive director said everyone at Saint Vincent’s Nursing Home would have preferred for the couple’s beds to be together, but they weren’t aware the family was unhappy.
“The wife was able to visit her husband freely and this was acceptable to her,” Berrette said. “I cannot say what we would have done had the family not accepted our answer, but they did and expressed gratitude that we tried to accommodate.”