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?"