Family upset parents weren't able to spend their last hours together in nursing home

Five months after losing both her mom and dad within a week of each other, Barbara DeJong still can't talk about their final days at Saint Vincent's Nursing Home without sobbing.

"They were married 62 years," she said. "They should have been allowed to be together for the most intimate moment of their life."

Murdock and Frances Newhook both had rooms on the second floor of the Halifax nursing home last fall. Frances was admitted a week before Murdock. She was placed with another woman, while he got a room with a male roommate when he was admitted.

The family repeatedly asked for the couple to be placed together. DeJong said they were told over and over that staff was working on it.

DeJong said the last time she helped her mom visit her dad in his room, Frances begged to move in.

"She just wanted to be with him and hold his hand, and we told her we were trying," said DeJong. "But she couldn't stay long because she was in a lot of pain, so we took her back and ... and then my dad died early the next morning."

"The system's not looking after our families at the end of their life," she said.

The executive director of Saint Vincent's, Angela Berrette, agreed with the family.

"This shouldn't have happened," she said. "This isn't what we wanted. Our goal was to have them together, that's what they deserved."

Berrette said the home doesn't place men and women in the same room, unless they are a couple and request to be together. In this case, there simply wasn't another room available to do that and accommodate the Newhooks' roommates.

Berrette said it normally takes three to six months for a private room to free up. The Newhooks were in the facility for a month.

DeJong thought Saint Vincent's had a room set aside for residents who were near death, but only learned that wasn't the case in the final hours of her dad's life. She said it should be mandatory to have a room set aside in all nursing homes so families can be together in private when someone is close to death.

Berrette said that isn't a possibility given the demand for beds.

"That's the reality of how the system works right now," she said.