Solange Caron hasn’t set foot outside her home or taken a full shower for a month. After knee surgery that left her unable to move on her own, the eldest laments being hastily kicked out of the rehabilitation center where she was continuing her recovery.
Solange Caron had been staying at the Saint-Lambert Rehabilitation Centre on Montreal’s South Shore for two months when she was told she had to go home. The 80-year-old senior was recovering from a knee replacement and still couldn’t move without pain. “I was walking bent double, holding on to my walker,” says the Brossard resident.
The staff at the Saint-Lambert Rehabilitation Centre suggested that Solange Caron contact social support organizations and the CLSC Samuel-de-Champlain to receive help at home. “These are places that do what they can, but they don’t have the resources to help me,” she laments. The senior was also offered to wear an emergency fall detector bracelet.
PHOTO PROVIDED BY JOSÉE LAPALME
Solange Caron first stayed at the Saint-Lambert Rehabilitation Center in the summer of 2023.
The center told Solange Caron that the CLSC Samuel-de-Champlain would install a bidet for her and offer her help with housework.
With no news, three weeks after returning home, the eldest called the CLSC. “No one had heard from me,” she says, adding that to this day she has not received the bidet or the assistance she was promised.
The Saint-Lambert Rehabilitation Centre was supposed to provide physiotherapy follow-up to Solange Caron after she left, but the eldest’s phone didn’t ring for a month. Her first appointment is scheduled for mid-July, a delay she finds unacceptable. “The more time passes, the more I become stiff and the more serious the consequences could be for me,” she explains.
Motionless in spite of herself
After her operation in early April, Solange Caron was initially placed in a “very small” room at the Saint-Lambert Rehabilitation Centre, where it was impossible for her to move around with a walker as required by her healing programme.
I lost six weeks of practice waiting in my room.
Solange Caron
The eldest eventually moved to a larger room, but not for long. Two weeks later, her physiotherapist told her she had to leave. “I refused, I asked for two more weeks, but they told me that was out of the question,” she says, a trace of anger in her voice.
The centre gave her a weekend and a few days to get back on her feet before returning home on June 4, a decision Caron calls “brutal.” Still, the senior says the physiotherapy she received was adequate.
But time is a big factor in this healing, and I can’t work miracles.
Solange Caron
“Are we waiting for me to get injured and go back to clogging up the health system, when I can be completely independent if I get the help I need?” asks Solange Caron.
Yet, everything had been done “according to the rules” in the summer of 2023 when she stayed at the Saint-Lambert Rehabilitation Centre after undergoing the same operation on her other knee. The return home had gone without a hitch, says the eldest. “By the time I got out, I was more independent […] and I had a physio appointment the next day.”
Left to her own devices
For a month, Solange Caron did not set foot outside, in part because she was afraid of hurting herself by taking the “too steep” access ramp that leads to her apartment. She went out for the first time on July 4, to get her hair cut with the help of a former work colleague.
When it comes to washing, the eldest has trouble managing on her own. “It takes a hit, my dignity,” says the one who still hasn’t managed to take a full shower since returning home. Her children help her “as best they can,” but most of her relatives live an hour away from her.
The Integrated Health and Social Services Centre (CISSS) of Montérégie-Centre, which includes the CLSC Samuel-de-Champlain and the Centre de réadaptation de Saint-Lambert, was unable to comment specifically on Solange Caron’s case. “We are sorry that a person may have felt poorly supported when returning home,” its spokesperson, Martine Lesage, said in an email to The Press.
The decision to discharge a patient is always preceded by a “rigorous” medical assessment, the spokesperson said. The patient’s care team is then responsible for taking steps with a CLSC if home support assessments are required, Martine Lesage said, adding that the timeframes can vary “depending on the person’s condition.”
The manager of the Saint-Lambert Rehabilitation Centre did not respond to interview requests from The Press.