Dying Toronto woman’s daughter says she spotted bedbugs in palliative care bed

Nancy Hayes, 81, had been suffering from lung cancer, vascular dementia and end-stage kidney failure, said Hayes's daughter. On Sunday, she died.

Erin Hayes spent day and night at her mother’s bedside as she lay dying at Michael Garron Hospital this month.

Nancy Hayes, 81, had been suffering from lung cancer, vascular dementia and end-stage kidney failure, said Hayes’s daughter.

“I had promised my dad — he passed away 16 years ago and I had promised him and my mom — that if ever the time came that you were unable to advocate for yourself, that I would be sure to be there so I did. Day and night for 16 days,” she said.

But on Sunday afternoon, Hayes said she was forced to leave her mother. Three hours later she learned she had died.

“I feel robbed of those precious final moments,” she said.

It was on Friday, Hayes said, she awoke around 4 a.m. feeling something biting her.

“I put on the light and I looked at my arm and I could see that I had the three bites in a row and I quickly examined my mother and noticed a couple on her,” she said, adding, “my thoughts were, ‘These are bedbugs.'”

Hayes said she went to address concerns with the nursing staff.