This Hopedale senior had to choose between health and home. He’s not the only one

Frank Sillett is one of eight people from Nunatsiavut living in a personal care home in southern Labrador, pointing to a persistent problem in elder care for the Inuit region.

Frank Sillett hasn't been back to Hopedale to see his family since moving to a small fishing village on Labrador's south coast a couple of years ago, but it's not because he doesn't want to.

Sillett, 70, is one of eight residents from Nunatsiavut who live at Harbourview Manor, a personal care home in Mary's Harbour. Together, they form a growing contingent of elderly Inuit forced to choose between their home communities and their health. 

“My health is a concern to me, and I have to find a way to take care of it, and this is the place to do it,” Sillett told CBC's Labrador Morning. 

The 20-bed private facility provides care to people across Labrador, but the spring of 2020 marks the first time Harbourview Manor has seen this many Nunatsiavut residents, according to Nina Pye, the co-chair of the manor's volunteer board. 

Sillett joined their ranks in 2018, after experiencing health issues  — including a heart surgery in St. John's — that meant he could not longer stay with family members in Nunatsiavut. His own home in Hopedale burned down years ago, he said.

“I was staying with my sister [in Hopedale] but she's got a full house, so I have no place really to go back. I have some brothers in Postville, but again this is why I'm here, to get help with my health problem,” he said. 

• Why this Labrador personal-care home has to fundraise to stay open
• Labrador seniors home close to closing

Sillett's younger sister, Mary Sillett, said there were no other options at the time. 

“There are many family members out there who are expected to do so much, and they want their loves ones to stay home, but sometimes that's not possible. It would really be good if we had the services here to allow them to do that,” she said..  

Her brother didn't want to go to Mary's Harbour, but after an assessment with public health it was determined that the facility would be a good fit.

He would have preferred to go into the long term care facility in Happy Valley-Goose Bay, she said, but there was a long wait list to get in, and he wasn't agreeable to staying in assisted living units in the town.  

Two years on, Frank Sillett still has a hard time being so far away. 

He talks with his sister on the phone frequently, but it's an expensive, 450-kilometre trip for family members to visit him in person.

“They'd have to be millionaires to come visit me,” he said. 

“It's kinda sad. You miss your family, and you want to be with them, especially at Christmas time or Easter time when you used to enjoy their company.” 

Senior supports

A survey by the Nunatsiavut Government found most seniors want to stay in their communities, said Michelle Kinney, its deputy minister of health and social development. If seniors have to leave, she said, they prefer to be in Happy Valley-Goose Bay as family members travel there from the coast. 

There used to be a personal care home in Happy Valley-Goose Bay. When it shut down in 2014, its residents moved into assisted living units run by the Labrador Friendship Centre.

Kinney isn't surprised by the growing number of seniors from Nunatsiavut in Mary's Harbour, but says it isn't only elderly Inuit who stay at the Harbourview Manor.  

“We have younger people, as well, that have special needs, that are in that home. We definitely recognize the need, and are looking at means to address that need, but it's a challenge,” Kinney said in a Labrador Morning interview, adding the try to arrange visits with family.

You certainly deserve not to be taken away from what you know.– Mary Sillett

The government looked into setting up personal care homes within Nunatsiavut, but the numbers of individuals needing the service didn't add up to make one feasible, she said.

Nunatsiavut has created three apartment units in Nain for seniors, and there's also supportive housing units, which Nain and Hopedale seniors can potentially access. 

For two consecutive years, Nunatsiavut applied to the province's affordable housing initiative to help fund a seniors complex in Nain, but Kinney said those applications were denied. 

She said they are now looking at an assisted living model, where two or three residents live in a home with around-the-clock staff.

“That's the model that a lot of Inuit would prefer. You're home in your own community. You're living in a small family unit as opposed to a facility, and we can do programming and have them involved in all the events in the community around elder socials and those sorts of things,” Kinney said. 

“Our preference would definitely be to have all those people at home in their own community.”

Demographic crunch

The elder care problem in the province isn't unique to Nunatsiavut, as Newfoundland and Labrador has one of the fastest aging populations in Canada.

“We want to support people to remain at home or in their own communities as long as possible,” said Lisa Dempster, the MHA for Cartwright-L'Anse au Clair, and also the minister responsible for seniors and housing.

She said the provincial government spends $3.6 million a year on supported living housing in Nunatsiavut, with three beds in Hopedale and four in Nain.

In 2018, Dempster said the affordable housing initiative had a $6 million budget, but the province received $42 million worth of requests.

While some projects in central and southern Labrador availed of that cash, Nunatsiavut's proposed seniors complex could not. She said proximity to medical services is a factor when assessing applications. 

“As people age, they need increasing medical services, no different than with personal care homes. So you like to place those units next to doctors, things that people need increasingly as they get older,” she said. 

Free Traffic Real Traffic At Your Finger Tips

Get Traffic With Zero Money Down

Join with bonus

“No doubt there will always be more that we could be doing, that we should be doing, that we wish we were doing. But we have to work within the parameters that we have and the financial situation that we're operating in.”

Longing for home

While the Nunatsiavut residents at Harbourview Manor can chat together and share their culture, although Nina Pye would like to see more help from the Nunatsiavut Government with that, something Kinney said her administration is open to.

For his part, Frank Sillett wants to come home to Nunatsiavut.

“I think he is lonely for home, he's very very lonely. He phones home and the first question he asks is, ‘could you figure out a way for me to get home? I wanna come to Hopedale',” Mary Sillett said.

She also recognizes that in dealing with the after effects of a stroke and mobility issues, he needs more care than a family member can provide in Hopedale.

Still, Mary Sillett said the need for seniors facilities in Nunatsiavut communities has been on the agenda for years.

“You know when you get older, you certainly deserve not to be taken away from what you know, but to end your days in what you know,” she said.

She's committed to helping her brother Frank when she can — on top of taking care of other family members — but  supports would be needed for him, and her, to come home. 

“It would be better if he was able to come back home for his own sake, and people like me would be helped through places like assisted living or whatever,” she said.

“He could be in the community and he would have the help he needs,” she said.

Read more articles from CBC Newfoundland and Labrador

Subscribe to Centenunlimited news

We hate SPAM and promise to keep your email address safe