Winnipeg man decries 'degrading and dehumanizing' lack of palliative home care for partner
CBC
When Katherine Ellis decided to come home for palliative care last month after being diagnosed with Stage 4 pancreatic cancer, she thought she'd be comfortable, spending her final days surrounded by loved ones.
Instead, the 62-year-old Winnipeg woman has been lying in the same bedsheets for weeks without more than a sponge bath because the help she was promised never arrived, her partner of a decade said.
"The Winnipeg Regional Health Authority, despite a lot of promises, has been unable to provide relief workers or home care workers," Eric De Schepper, 58, said on Thursday.
For nearly five weeks now, De Schepper said that has meant his common law spouse's caregiving has been left solely to him, even though he can't help her out of bed or fully bathe her on his own.
He said he's asked their palliative care co-ordinator weekly for the couple of days of home care they were supposed to get, and for a couple of half days of respite work for him to get a break — and was told they don't have the resources to send workers.
"I'd like to ask anybody, challenge anybody, how would you feel after being treated for four weeks like that? It's just degrading and dehumanizing," De Schepper said.
A cancer support organization he contacted was able to hire home care workers to bathe and take care of Ellis for a few hours on Wednesday, but De Schepper said that support is limited. Still, that day made all the difference for his partner.
"She had a smile on her face, something I haven't seen in a very long time," he said. "But beyond that, the system itself, the regional health authority, has totally failed."
The head of the union that represents more than 14,000 health-care support workers in the Winnipeg Regional Health Authority and Shared Health says she wouldn't disagree with De Schepper.
"I believe this government has failed people with the health-care system by not having enough people in place to look after people at home," said Debbie Boissonneault, the president of CUPE Local 204, in an interview Thursday.
Boissonneault, a health-care aide by trade, says she's been with families at their loved one's end of life and it's very hard on people at the best of times.
"Everybody has a right to health care and I think that having someone be in their own home at this time is important," she said, adding she hopes that De Schepper gets that help.
A WRHA spokesperson acknowledged there continues to be a home care worker shortage, and said the authority recognizes the important needs of palliative care patients.
The spokesperson said in an email on Thursday the WRHA is prioritizing filling services as soon as possible to support those patients and their families at home.
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