Guy Tessier was terrified at the idea of ending his days in a CHSLD. He had made his wife promise that she would never abandon him in one of these places of death. Anyway, the question did not arise: he did not “rate” CHSLD, as we say in hospital jargon.
Posted at 5:00 a.m.
Translation: Guy Tessier did not meet the criteria drawn up by experts from the Ministry of Health to be admitted to this select club – where no one wants to finish, but whose waiting list still has 4270 names…
Guy Tessier was considered “semi-autonomous”, even if he needed assistance for the least of his movements, even if he received 3.5 liters of oxygen per day, even if he had just been diagnosed, in addition to his pulmonary fibrosis, cerebral amyloid, an incurable neurodegenerative disease.
Neurodegenerative. The word says it: from that moment, for the 80-year-old man, it could only degenerate.
But he did not rate CHSLD.
On July 25, confused, Guy Tessier was admitted to hospital in Shawinigan. As the days passed, it became increasingly clear to his loved ones that he would not be coming home.
In mid-August, Guy Tessier was no longer receiving “active care”. According to the established procedure, he had to leave the hospital. Other patients needed his bed.
A social worker at the hospital provided the family with a list of private seniors’ residences in the area. Odile Tessier, Guy’s sister, got on the phone. She chained the calls. Each time, she listed her brother’s needs. Each time, she was interrupted: “Sorry, madam, but her case is too heavy…”
Nobody wanted Guy Tessier. At the hospital, we were getting impatient. “The pressure to make the placement as quickly as possible, she was there, says Odile Tessier. The doctor bluntly told us that there was pressure to free the room…”
After a few days, a social worker from the hospital announced to the family that he had found a place at the Val-Mauricie residence in Shawinigan.
At 11 a.m. on August 23, Guy Tessier was transferred to the residence. At 12:30 p.m. the same day, he returned to the hospital…by ambulance.
He had fallen in the toilet, where there were no grab bars. Inoperable femur fracture.
Guy Tessier died 72 hours later.
Reviewing her notes, Odile Tessier realized that the Val-Mauricie residence was one of the establishments she had contacted a week before her brother’s death. In her notebook, she had written it in full: “refused.”
“I was flabbergasted,” says Odile Tessier. How could the Val-Mauricie residence, which had refused to accept her brother on the pretext that his case was too heavy, have been able to turn around and accept him a week later?
Former nurse, Odile Tessier does not believe that she has exaggerated her brother’s needs with the residences contacted. For his part, could the social worker have embellished the portrait to relieve the hospital of a patient who has become cumbersome?
“We took care to analyze the chronology of the events and according to the information collected, the care and services offered by our workers were in accordance with good practices, as well as with the policies in force”, assures Geneviève Jauron, spokesperson for the CIUSSS de la Mauricie-et-du-Centre-du-Québec.
The managers of the Val-Mauricie residence declined my request for an interview. In the accident report, it is suggested to put grab bars in the toilets to prevent a similar event from happening again.
“My brother was not heavy enough to be listed on the CHSLD, but too heavy for residences, says Odile Tessier. He fell into a hole. »
The DD Sophie Zhang, co-president of the Community of practice of physicians in CHSLDs, speaks rather of a “blind spot of the health network”. And that’s a real problem.
“These people have fewer resources, but are still very heavy,” she notes.
This gray area is very difficult. A lot of doctors tell me about it. After two months, their patients rate CHSLD and have to redo the whole process…
The DD Sophie Zhang, Co-President of the Community of Practice for Physicians in CHSLDs
Guy Tessier’s son, Jean-François, does not understand this logic. “I was told: ‟Your father, he is between two”. Me, in my head, if a patient is in between, we’re not going to downgrade the service offer. He has a neurodegenerative disease, it’s not going to improve! »
PHOTO ROBERT SKINNER, THE PRESS
Jean-François Tessier, son of Guy Tessier
His father’s place, he believes, was not in a private residence.
That Guy Tessier didn’t want to know about living in a CHSLD, that’s understandable. In recent days, we have again been treated to atrocious reports on residents “left in their urine, for lack of staff”. Two years after the slaughter of the first wave, two years after we said to ourselves “never again”, here we are again.
However, CHSLDs are not gulags – whatever the politicians say who accuse the Legault government of investing in concrete and who promise to invest in home care, so that all seniors can age. in peace with them.
It is not that simple. We need both. Home care, no doubt. But, also, CHSLDs. Adequately funded.
“Between 80 and 90% of people in CHSLDs have cognitive disorders, so dementia which means that they are unable to stay at home, explains the DD Zhang. They are extremely ill, to the point that home services are no longer sufficient. »
“There will always be people who will have to use these resources, says the DD Zhang. That it’s so terrifying for them is extremely problematic. They must know that they will be safe, that they will receive good care, that they will be able to have a good end of life. »
Because, no, there are not only horror stories in CHSLDs. Often it goes well. Jean-François Tessier would like us to stop believing that these establishments are places of death. Sometimes they can even save lives. “He wouldn’t have left like that, my father, in a CHSLD. »