Dear Editor:
I have read about Dr. Bill Goodine taking a stand to bring issues at the Upper River Valley Hospital in Waterville to light. This is what I have been trying to do for the past two years, but from a different perspective.
I have been meeting with officials at the provincial Department of Health to request a review of medical care being delivered in Waterville. I have personally brought my concerns to Margaret Melanson, CEO for Horizon Health, Dr. Chowdhury, and the patient advocate. I am now filing a complaint with the College of Physicians and Surgeons and the New Brunswick Nurses Association.
I was the next of kin for an elderly senior who died at the Waterville hospital in 2024. While a patient, he was asked by hospital staff if he wanted to be “comfortable” and was then administered palliative sedation.
I did not agree to this treatment, and I do not believe he knew that “being comfortable” meant that heavy drugs would be used to facilitate his departure from this world. When I challenged hospital staff, they told me that was exactly the plan, that he was 93, he took a turn for the worse, and we had to let him go.
My inquiries have revealed that “being made comfortable” is common among seniors in the hospital. Like my loved one, many of them probably didn’t understand the consequences of saying yes. For family members who did not consent, there is a sense of betrayal.
There are hundreds of seniors in hospitals around the province waiting for a nursing home bed. Some were found living in a hospital garage without running water or washrooms. Others are dying in waiting rooms and parking lots. There are seniors like my loved one who go to the hospital to get medical care and never return home again.
Horizon Health needs to change our hospitals’ policies on “being made comfortable.” It’s deceptive and unethical to ask this when the patient or family members do not know what it really means.
Laura Russell
Canterbury, N.B.
