We often hear about load shedding since the start of the pandemic, but its impacts remain abstract. As hospitals face a critical lack of resources, The duty decided to put words and faces to statistics. Today, the stories of Catherine and Diane.
“I’ve been suffering for two years, I can’t continue to live like this,” says Catherine Houssard on the phone. The 47-year-old Montrealer, mother of two, suffers from severe disabling osteoarthritis of the hip. “I can’t walk anymore, I can’t do housework and shopping. When I turn in my bed at night, I scream in pain…”
A small sob chokes in her voice when she talks about her teenagers. “I can no longer do activities with them. I’m losing all the special time with my kids before they leave home…I’m sorry, I’m emotional…”
After months of procedures, examinations and treatments, she was finally put on a waiting list for hip surgery. It was last June. Since then, her condition has deteriorated and she still has no appointment. Worse, her surgeon told her last week that he couldn’t give her a date or timeframe because of the load shedding. And when she contacted the hospital’s pre-admission service, she got an answering machine informing her that it was impossible to have delays and that there would be no return call to this effect.
Catherine Houssard complained to the hospital users’ committee and a few days ago received a return call from a nurse telling her that she could not do anything for her. However, she told him that there were 23 patients before her on the waiting list for hip surgery and that this meant – in the best case scenario – a delay of at least 6 months. “And that was without taking into account load shedding, which will make the situation worse! », Laments the patient, who has lost all hope.
After hanging up with the nurse, Mme Houssard telephoned a private clinic. She could have surgery there within two months, at a cost of $25,000. She plans to take out a loan to pay for the operation, because she can no longer bear the pain which is getting worse day by day. ” I see no other solution… “
Immobilized away from others
Diane Leclerc, 72, misses the days when she could go out and volunteer in hospitals. “I am the president of the Jean-Talon volunteer association,” says the lady who worked for nearly 40 years in the health network in Montreal as a manager. “I make friendly visits, I go to visit patients on the floors. Social workers don’t always have time to do that, especially in times of a pandemic. Sometimes I even sing them songs! “.
Waiting for hip surgery, she is immobilized in her chair. The operation was supposed to take place last Monday, but was canceled shortly before Christmas. “They told me it was because of the pandemic that they couldn’t do that kind of surgery. “
The intervention aims to replace the prosthesis that was placed on his hip last April. In September, the prosthesis came off and Mr.me Leclerc fell. She was rushed to hospital where she was referred to an orthopedic surgeon, but was unable to get an appointment.
At the end of November, she fell again, this time in her bath. His head was stuck under the tap when paramedics arrived. At the hospital, he was told that he had to be operated on. In the meantime, she wears a kind of splint which immobilizes her leg but greatly reduces her mobility.
“I’m still in pain. I have to be careful, I’m not allowed to bend over. “
Diane Leclerc is entitled to care from the CLSC to wash herself, but only once a week so she manages, washes her hair in the kitchen sink.
Luckily she has her neighbours, two other retirees from the apartment block with whom she has developed a mutual aid system on the floor. “Early in the morning, we leave our doors open. We have a system: we say “hello”, “how are you? “.
One after another, they come to bring him dishes to his door. She laughingly compares it to “offerings to Buddha” because she is, by her own admission, “a little chubby.”
“I still have good morale but I’m tired of being in the house,” she explains. “I tell myself that there are worse people than me, people with cancer, heart conditions. “