Pembroke, Ont. woman, 99, on years-long waitlist for long-term care
Norma Mullen is in the Pembroke Regional Hospital after falling and breaking her hip at the beginning of August.
When she is ready to leave the hospital, the 99-year-old will be in need of long-term care.
In the meantime, her daughter Noreen Carisse has moved from Ottawa into her mother's house in Pembroke to be her caregiver.
"It's just necessary, especially since her age of 99," Carisse tells CTV News. "She has difficulty hearing."
Carisse has put her mother on a waitlist at Miramichi Lodge long term care home in Pembroke, but has been told the wait could be years.
"It's hard to find that consistent kind of help that someone mom's age would require in your home," says Carisse. "And I'd gladly do it, but it could be a burnout situation for me as well."
"There's no one to look after me except my daughter," says Mullen, who ironically lives just across the street from the hospital and healthcare providers.
"Look at my age and the condition I'm in. This is ridiculous."
The family say they were told the waitlist at Miramichi is 300 to 400 people long. The long-term care home was unable to provide comment to CTV News at the time of publishing, but list online a capacity for 166 residents.
"It's depressing at times to think of the future and what it could hold," says Carisse. "Unless I'm willing to move my entire life here and look after mom."
Carisse is currently living in her mother's home by herself. She says her kids and husband occasionally make the trip from Ottawa to Pembroke to support her. But she expects her mother to return home next month, where Carisse will take on the role as full-time primary caregiver.
She's now scrambling to find someone to come into the home and care for her mother.
"I've sort of pushed [the search for a long term care home] to the side and realized that it's up to me to find the people that I need to look after my mom."
For Mullen, she believes she may not live to see space in a home become available.
"Well, there's no room anyway for me anywhere else," says the 99-year-old. "Why not go?"
CTVNews.ca Top Stories
Appeals court overturns Harvey Weinstein's 2020 rape conviction from landmark trial
New York’s highest court on Thursday overturned Harvey Weinstein’s 2020 rape conviction, finding the judge at the landmark #MeToo trial prejudiced the ex-movie mogul with improper rulings, including a decision to let women testify about allegations that weren’t part of the case.
BREAKING Honda to get up to $5B in govt help for EV battery, assembly plants
Honda is set to build an electric vehicle battery plant next to its Alliston, Ont., assembly plant, which it is retooling to produce fully electric vehicles, all part of a $15-billion project that is expected to include up to $5 billion in public money.
1 arrested in northern Alberta during public shelter order
Residents of John D'Or Prairie, a community on the Little Red River Cree Nation in northern Alberta, were told to take shelter Thursday morning during a police operation.
Secret $70M Lotto Max winners break their silence
During a special winner celebration near their hometown, Doug and Enid shared the story of how they discovered they were holding a Lotto Max ticket worth $70 million and how they kept this huge secret for so long.
Remains from a mother-daughter cold case were found nearly 24 years later, after a deathbed confession from the suspect
A West Virginia father is getting some sense of closure after authorities found the remains of his young daughter and her mother following a deathbed confession from the man believed to have fatally shot them nearly two decades ago.
New deep-water channel allows first ship to pass Key bridge wreckage in Baltimore
The first cargo ship passed through a newly opened deep-water channel in Baltimore on Thursday after being stuck in the harbor since the Francis Scott Key Bridge collapsed four weeks ago, halting most maritime traffic through the city's port.
First in Canada procedure performed at London, Ont. hospital
A London man has become the first person in Canada to receive a robotic assisted surgery on his spine. Dave Myeh suffered from debilitating, chronic back pain that led to sciatica in his right now and extreme pain in his lower back.
Monthly earnings rise, payroll employment falls: jobs report
The number of vacant jobs in Canada increased in February, while monthly payroll employment decreased in food services, manufacturing, and retail trade, among other sectors.
Doctors say capital gains tax changes will jeopardize their retirement. Is that true?
The Canadian Medical Association asserts the Liberals' proposed changes to capital gains taxation will put doctors' retirement savings in jeopardy, but some financial experts insist incorporated professionals are not as doomed as they say they are.