My parents were happily reunited March 15, 2019 at Fairview Personal Care Home in Brandon, Manitoba. Our family is extremely thankful and deeply grateful for those who helped spread their story and who offered kind and supportive words of encouragement.
It has been an incredible journey of almost a year to get my parents back together where they belong. It almost cost my dad his life as he struggled to go and visit mom every single day in the personal care home. His depression, separation anxiety and physical exhaustion deteriorated to the point where he had to be hospitalized, subsequently leading to the personal care home. Happy to be with his wife, absolutely, but seriously, was their forced and involuntary separation resulting in severe deterioration of mental and physical health for both necessary to allow them to be a couple again? Does this sound like the way Canadians treat their seniors? Do we repay our veterans with this type of treatment?
There are viable and creative solutions to the issue of married senior couples requiring different health care needs. These solutions don't require a heartbreaking forced separation or cause major costs to the government or system. It only requires the political will to work toward improving the current policies. I would encourage government to review other provinces and look at how they are dealing with these issues. Share "best practices", learn from each other.
The hard and cruel fact is that the Manitoba Health Care Minister and his party, did not want to even discuss possible solutions or review other provincial policies which have successfully dealt with this issue. Their mindset was to simply ignore and not deal with it. Shameless.
The Conservative Party of Manitoba has failed the seniors of this province and the children of seniors, in their blatant neglect to deal with these issues. Issues which will only continue to grow as boomers age. Nothing has ever been solved by putting your head in the sand.
At election time, as voters and citizens, ask the hard questions of all candidates. Read about the Faces campaign from the Canadian senior non-profit advocacy group, CARP.ca who are advocating for a national strategy on senior health care. Push for accountability.
As a boomer, I believe, we must act now to do something about our failing senior care before the almost 10 million of us hit the "golden years" ! Speak out!
Thank you all again for your support!
The Smith Family