Whatever happened to ‘till death us do part’?

Couples should never be separated in long-term care, at a time when partners need each other most

The story by SaltWire reporter Juanita Mercer about a St. John’s couple that has been separated now that Ray Will requires a higher level of care than his wife, Delia Will, strikes close to the bone.

Anyone who has ever had to contemplate — or experience — such a painful disconnection knows how difficult it is.

The Wills had been living together at a retirement home until Ray’s Parkinson’s disease meant he needed more attention than Delia does for her dementia.

They have been together for nearly 67 years, having met in their native England in 1955.

They are now living in separate facilities.

They’re only about a kilometre apart, but to their hearts that distance must feel like an unbreachable chasm.

In 2014, when my father was diagnosed with inoperable cancer and had to be hospitalized for a while, the private retirement home where he lived with my mother said that if we arranged home care, they could accommodate him in his final days so that they could stay together.

They had been married for 62 years. She has dementia.

At the last moment, when we had collected him from the hospital and were bringing him home, our family was told he couldn’t be accommodated after all.

To say we were upset is an understatement. Fortunately, within a short period of time, whatever misunderstanding had occurred was resolved, and he was allowed to rejoin our mother.

He died a week or so later in palliative care, but at least he got to spend most of his remaining time at home with the love of his life.

Those moments when we thought they would be separated were terrible. Their love was deep and enduring, and one could not imagine life without the other.

It was not something either of them would have even contemplated, until death intervened.

My mother now lives at another nursing home. She remembers that my father is gone and misses him terribly.

In the Wills’ case, Delia is now left to wonder each day where her husband has gone and her children leave notes in her room telling her that Ray is safe but living somewhere else.

“My mother has dementia, and forgets that he has been moved, and why he’s been moved, and doesn’t understand when she’ll be able to see him, and she gets extremely upset,” said their son, Gavin Will.

People who are very wealthy may never have to experience this familial trauma. But for most people, public nursing homes are the only affordable and viable alternative when parents get to the point where they can no longer care for themselves at home.

Newfoundland and Labrador Health Minister John Haggie has said the province simply doesn’t have enough long-term care beds to meet the demand. He told SaltWire that the gov

ernment has tried to help in situations such as the Wills’ by moving one partner to a facility closer to where the other partner lives, or assisting with visits.

I can understand the financial pressures involved, particularly in a province as cash-strapped as Newfoundland and Labrador.

But we are talking about human rights here, and human hearts.

When a couple honours the vows they made to each other and stays together for a lifetime, it’s because they want to be together.

The state should have no right to separate them just because they require different levels of care.

There has to be a better way. And, in fact, there is.

In Nova Scotia, a year ago, on March 1, 2021, the Life Partners in Long-Term Care Act took effect.

The act states: “Where an individual and the individual’s life partner have both been assessed and deemed eligible by the provincial health authority, as defined by the Health Authorities Act, for placement in a facility, the individual and the individual’s life partner have the right to be placed in the same facility.”

It applies to spouses and common-law partners accepted into one of the 133 long-term care homes licensed and funded by the province of Nova Scotia, including veterans’ facilities.

At the time, then Nova Scotia premier Stephen McNeil said, “Couples who have loved and supported each other should not have to face being separated when they enter long-term care.”

Exactly.

Nova Scotia nursing home beds were in short supply then, too. Still, that province got it done.

The Wills deserve to be together, to love and to cherish, in sickness and in health.