• City Hall
  • Province House
  • Education
  • Environment
  • Investigation
  • Journalism
  • Commentary
  • @Tim_Bousquet
  • Log In

Halifax Examiner

An independent, adversarial news site in Halifax, NS

  • Home
  • About
    • Terms and Conditions
    • Commenting policy
  • Archives
  • Contact us
  • Subscribe
  • Donate
  • Manage your account
  • Swag
You are here: Home / Featured / Yes, Premier, people are suffering because they can’t say good-bye to their loved ones dying in nursing homes

Yes, Premier, people are suffering because they can’t say good-bye to their loved ones dying in nursing homes

Dr. Robert Strang spoke honestly and compassionately of the pain suffered by families not being able to visit loved ones in nursing homes who are dying of COVID-19. And then Premier Stephen McNeil denied Strang had ever said it.

May 21, 2020 By Evelyn C. White 1 Comment

The Halifax Examiner is providing all COVID-19 coverage for free.

The mid-1980s found me at the Manhattan home of Dr. Michael Baden. I listened mesmerized as the renowned medical examiner discussed, with visible emotion, his findings as chairman of the US congressional forensic pathology panels that had investigated the assassinations of President John F. Kennedy and civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr.

I was also moved by Dr. Baden’s contributions as the pathologist who, in 1991, exhumed and re-examined the remains of Medgar Evers — an  official with the  National Association of Colored People who’d been gunned down at his Mississippi home, in 1963. As Baden recounts in the documentary, Confessions of a Medical Examiner, the work enabled him to acquaint Evers’s youngest child, age three when his father was murdered, with a man he scarcely remembered.

“I received the sealed casket and when I opened it, the body was in perfect condition,” Baden explains. “I had told the son that I’d call him after the autopsy.” Instead, Baden arranged the room “as if it were a funeral parlour” and invited Evers’s son (then in his thirties) to view the near pristine remains of his dad. “There were tears in my eyes and tears in the eyes of others who were in the autopsy room,” Baden says.

I was reminded of Dr. Baden when last week Dr. Robert Strang, the chief medical officer of health in Nova Scotia, shared his feelings about the rising number of COV19-related deaths (now more than 50) at the Northwood long-term care home in Halifax. Asked about visitor restrictions at the facility, Dr. Strang conceded, during a CBC radio interview, that the policy stands to prevent some relatives of Northwood residents from ever again seeing their loved ones in person. (The question and Strang’s answer starts at the 5:30 mark in the audio below.)

https://20253.mc.tritondigital.com/CBC_INFORMATION_MORNING_FROM_CBC_RADIO_NOVA_SCOTIA_HIGHLIGHTS_P/media-session/4160faae-1bd6-42ad-b01b-dc21c0612455/nsinfomorn-zcXLjJFf-20200512.mp3

“It’s very hard for me to even say that,” Dr. Strang declared, haltingly. “But that is the reality. Because unfortunately having someone coming in physically to visit can put the whole facility at risk.”

In a recent phone conversation, Dr. Baden likewise acknowledged the special anguish that the coronavirus is exacting upon nursing home residents and their kin.

“Families with elders in care are suffering terribly because of the complications of the disease,” he told me. “The process of dying is often more difficult on the living than on the dead. I think people are deeply grateful whenever doctors can show their grief. And it’s even more important now because of the helplessness so many are feeling.”

Like others who heard the interview with Dr. Strang, I was touched by the poignant honesty, humanity and compassion he exhibited during the May 12 Information Morning broadcast. So I was dumbfounded when, during a press briefing later that same day, Premier Stephen McNeil suggested that Dr. Strang had not expressed regrets about the impact of visitor restrictions at Northwood.

“What Dr. Strang told your colleagues was that it would be a little longer for the restrictions to come off of long-term care facilities so we may be a little bit longer before we get to see our loved ones,” McNeil said in response to journalist Shaina Luck (also from CBC) who asked him how the province could improve conditions in future senior care facilities.

“It was not that we would never see them again,” McNeil continued. “That was not the intent of the comment. Because I actually listened to the conversation and it was about it would be [sic] one of the last things that we would lift the restrictions from.”

I’ll leave it to the forensic psychologists to debate what compelled McNeil to counter the empathy that coursed through the airwaves after Dr. Strang’s heartfelt expression of sorrow for those who’ve been unable to bid final farewell to loved ones at Northwood.

It did not surprise me that Dr. Strang sat silently as McNeil “re-interpreted” his remarks. After all, the premier is his “boss.”

But I’m hard pressed to fathom what McNeil thought he had to gain by soft-pedalling the harsh reality that dozens of relatives (and likely more to come) of deceased residents of Northwood are now experiencing the added torment of having not, in point of fact, ever again seen them alive.  Might the premier’s “keep calm and carry on” stance on the death march at Northwood be related to policies enacted on his watch that have exacerbated problems in the province’s already imperilled health care system — i.e. the refusal to increase the pathetic pay of home care aides or frontline workers at senior facilities.

This while the province continues to invest millions in the “once, twice, three times a shady deal” known as the Yarmouth ferry.

“People who don’t have the insight to face the trauma they’ve had in their own lives have a hard time dealing with the emotional suffering of others,” said Dr. Leah Werner, an Oregon family physician who has treated many COV-19 patients and consoled countless bereaved family members during her medical career.

“We cannot take the sting of death away but we can hold space with the truth of it and share our humanity with the greater community because it can help with the healing,” she continued. “It sounds to me as if your Dr. Strang did that and should be applauded for it.”


The author of Alice Walker: A Life, Evelyn C. White is a freelance writer in Halifax.

The Halifax Examiner is an advertising-free, subscriber-supported news site. Your subscription makes this work possible; please subscribe.

Some people have asked that we additionally allow for one-time donations from readers, so we’ve created that opportunity, via the PayPal button below. We also accept e-transfers, cheques, and donations with your credit card; please contact iris “at” halifaxexaminer “dot” ca for details.

Thank you!




Filed Under: Featured, News, Province House

Comments

  1. beatoncd says

    May 21, 2020 at 10:01 am

    It is tragic. One of my neighbors died in the palliative care unit of the QE in April. Two weeks before, she was still in her home feeling nauseous and tired. But her hidden cancer was swift and aggressive. Her adult sons were notified of her hospital admission but because they had traveled from out of province were not able to see their mother before she died. Our pandemic policies are keeping us safe but are heart breaking at times.

    Log in to Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

You must be logged in to post a comment.

The Tideline, with Tara Thorne

Brian Borcherdt. Photo: Anna Edwards-Borcherdt

Brian Borcherdt came of age in Yarmouth in the 1990s. When he arrived in Halifax, the city’s famous music scene was already waning, and worse, the music he made was rejected by the cool kids anyway. After decades away from Nova Scotia, he and his young family have settled in the Annapolis Valley, where he’ll zoom in to chat with Tara about his band Holy Fuck’s endlessly delayed tour, creating the Dependent Music collective, and the freedom and excitement of the improvised music he’s making now. Plus: Bringing events back in 2021.

The Tideline is advertising-free and subscriber-supported. It’s also a very good deal at just $5 a month. Click here to support The Tideline.

Uncover: Dead Wrong

In 1995, Brenda Way was brutally murdered behind a Dartmouth apartment building. In 1999, Glen Assoun was found guilty of the murder. He served 17 years in prison, but steadfastly maintained his innocence. In 2019, Glen Assoun was fully exonerated.

Halifax Examiner founder and investigative journalist Tim Bousquet has followed the story of Glen Assoun's wrongful conviction for over five years. Now, Bousquet tells that story as host of Season 7 of the CBC podcast series Uncover: Dead Wrong.

Click here to go to listen to the podcast, or search for CBC Uncover on Apple podcasts, Spotify, or any other podcast aggregator.

About the Halifax Examiner

Examiner folk The Halifax Examiner was founded by investigative reporter Tim Bousquet, and now includes a growing collection of writers, contributors, and staff. Left to right: Joan Baxter, Stephen Kimber, Linda Pannozzo, Erica Butler, Jennifer Henderson, Iris the Amazing, Tim Bousquet, Evelyn C. White, El Jones, Philip Moscovitch More about the Examiner.

Sign up for email notification

Sign up to receive email notification of new posts on the Halifax Examiner. Note: signing up for email notification of new posts is NOT subscribing to the Halifax Examiner. To subscribe, click here.

Recent posts

  • Halifax councillors approve plan to boost debt to cover climate change, transit, active transportation projects January 20, 2021
  • 3 cases of COVID-19 announced on Wednesday, Jan. 20 January 20, 2021
  • As the U.S. changes the guard, let’s keep our borders closed to deeply divisive politics January 20, 2021
  • More federal money might help seniors in Nova Scotia, but the province is slow on the uptake as Liberal leadership candidates stake out their positions January 20, 2021
  • Atlantic Gold is going to court January 20, 2021

Commenting policy

All comments on the Halifax Examiner are subject to our commenting policy. You can view our commenting policy here.

Copyright © 2021