Monique Verdy, 90, will not be seeing her daughters this week. The resident of Manoir Fleury, an institution for the elderly, broke her hip while trying to go to her bed. Hospitalized, she will therefore not be able to receive visitors under a recent directive restricting visits to certain hospitals.
She is being treated at St. Mary’s Hospital, where the family has been advised that visitation will no longer be permitted. A distressing prospect for her mother, says her daughter Louise Jones.
“When you’re old like that, it’s normal to have cognitive problems and to be disturbed. It would reassure us that someone could be with her. She could die alone, ”she adds.
PHOTO PROVIDED BY THE FAMILY
Monique verdy
Mme Verdy suffered a lot during the first wave of COVID-19, insists his daughter. She went from an apartment where she was independent to a private residence. The forced isolation during the pandemic made her sad, confused, in addition to leading to a deterioration in her state of health.
A week to ten days without seeing familiar faces, it’s a universe of waiting for an elderly person who can lose his bearings easily.
Louise Jones, whose mother, Monique Verdy, is hospitalized in St. Mary’s
Anouk Bienvenu’s father has been hospitalized since August 5 following a diagnosis of cancer. Her fourth in 12 years, her daughter said with a sigh.
“It was my mother’s presence at her bedside that allowed dad to get through it,” she confides on the phone. The isolation, the health problems, the comings and goings in the operating room were trying for the 77-year-old man.
The patient’s wife gave herself body and soul to ensure the follow-up of the care provided at the Center hospitalier de l’Université de Montréal (CHUM), underlines Mr.me Welcome.
Caregivers aren’t just there to sit in a chair and chat. They contribute to the healing of the patient.
Anouk Bienvenu, whose father is hospitalized at the CHUM
Her mother helps her father understand the recommendations of the many specialists who have been following her case for months.
“Taking away my mother’s visits takes away my father’s ability to improve on a daily basis. He’s going to be more isolated. It is aligning itself towards a small depression, ”laments Anouk Bienvenu.
This is why the ban on visits announced this week at the university hospital worries her. “There is someone, somewhere who lacks judgment and humanity. ”
Caregivers must be protected from the virus and the risk of an outbreak minimized, she adds. But her mother being triply vaccinated and essential to the recovery of her father, she sees a certain injustice in this new rule.
Prohibition or restriction of visits
Since Sunday, the CHUM has banned all visits to its patients, except for “humanitarian reasons such as end-of-life care, medical assistance in dying and childbirth”, we can read in a press release released by the health institution. The progression of the Omicron variant justifies the CHUM’s decision.
“Visits have been permitted in recent days in order to offer our patients a more human Christmas,” said Lucie Dufresne, communications advisor at the CHUM, in an email to Press.
Instead, the McGill University Health Center (MUHC) decided to restrict intensive care visits at the Royal Victoria Hospital, the Montreal General Hospital and the Montreal Neurological Hospital. From December 26, and for the next two weeks, only patients at the end of their life will be able to receive visits from their loved ones.
“The decision to restrict visits was taken as a preventive measure and not in response to an overcapacity of COVID-19 cases,” said Sandra Sciangula, spokesperson for the MUHC.
Caregiver visits are also suspended in intensive care and in red zones at St. Mary’s Hospital, Lakeshore General Hospital and LaSalle Hospital, the CIUSSS spokesperson for LaSalle confirmed by email. West Island of Montreal, Annie Charbonneau.
“This decision is justified by the desire to mitigate the risk of outbreaks in areas under high surveillance and to avoid service breakdowns,” added the spokesperson. Visits for humanitarian reasons – in the case of a person at the end of life or receiving palliative care – are however permitted.
The Ministry of Health and Social Services (MSSS), for its part, prohibits the presence of visitors in hospitals, but accepts visits from a limited number of caregivers.
“The general guideline is that a patient can have a [personne proche aidante] at a time, to a maximum of two per day. It is necessary for relatives to identify a maximum of four different caregivers who can take turns, ”said MSSS spokesperson Marie-Louise Harvey in writing.
Caregivers are also required to present their vaccination passport before entering a hospital, with a few exceptions, such as a person accompanying a woman who gives birth or a young person under the age of 18.