Sudbury woman says 'hallway health care' led her father to apply for a medically-assisted death

When Cleo Gratton told his family he would rather die than go back to Health Sciences North in Sudbury, his daughter says he wasn't exaggerating. 

The 84-year-old from Chelmsford died last week of natural causes, shortly after he was approved for a medically-assisted death, often known as MAID.

His daughter Lynn says he made that decision after a recent stay at the Sudbury hospital left him “beyond floored.”

Gratton— who had a variety of health problems including kidney failure and heart disease— spent a night in the emergency room before being moved to a bed in a hallway on the 7th floor.

"There were no lights, all the bulbs in that hallway had been completely removed. The only light we had was almost like a desk lamp that had been bolted to the wall,” Lynn said. 

“Patients are passing by, nurses are going by, no privacy, no compassion, no dignity.”

She said watching nurses using headlamps to examine her dad’s feet was “beyond ridiculous.”

“It was just one thing after another and it really opened our eyes to what’s going on in our hospitals,” she said.

'My dad said: ‘Push, push, push for change. Make people aware of what's going on. Open the discussion, bring it your MP, your MPP, keep going straight up.’"

Lynn said she found the doctors and nurses at Health Sciences North “amazing,” but wonders why they remain so overworked, considering how much the hospital is taking in from parking fees and its 50/50 lottery.

“Why are they still taking in patients if we have an overcrowding issue and they have no place to put these people?” she said. 

Lynn has started a Facebook page where other patients and families can share the experiences they had at Health Sciences North.

David McNeil, President and CEO of Health Sciences North, said chronic overcrowding is an issue that many of the province's hospitals are facing and said the hospital was "built too small" to manage patients from across the entire region.