Nanaimo seniors rally against elder care treatment
NANAIMO — After watching their spouses wither in a residential care home in Nanaimo, two local seniors are speaking out about their concerns.
Geir Larsen’s wife Jeannie was admitted to Dufferin Place, run by Island Health, in October 2014 and she passed away in care on July 28, 2016.
Larsen said he expected his wife’s final years to be as peaceful as possible after years of home care, a place where “it’s taken care of, you’re shown respect, you’re maintained, kept clean, fed. All those things you’d think would be normal, but I slowly started to find out that was not the case.”
He said he left Dufferin Place every day after visiting his wife with a “bitter taste in his mouth” after seeing his wife left with breakfast food caked around her mouth for hours and also the low quality meals she was given. He said his wife’s food was to be pureed to help her eat, but it was so mashed it had essentially become water.