The family of an elderly man with Alzheimer’s says he has fallen through the cracks at Eastern Health.

On May 20, 85-year-old Richard Hall was brought to the Health Sciences Centre as his Alzheimer’s symptoms were no longer manageable by his wife who had previously been his caretaker. Hall has been on a waitlist for long-term care since August of 2021.

However, in the three weeks since Hall has been at the hospital, he has not been admitted as a patient due to the risk of losing his spot on the list, and has been lying in a hospital bed in the emergency room. His family says during his stay, he has lost mobility due to being restrained to the bed, developed a UTI which required a catheter, which then became infected, as well as testing positive for COVID-19, and dealing with suspected pneumonia.

Hall’s daughter, Jacinta Cameron, says his quality of life has deteriorated. She says when at home, he was declining in a dignified manner, but after the last three weeks he’s a shell of the man he was. She calls it “heartbreaking.”

Cameron has also run into issues on the social work side of things. She says they’ve had nine different workers assigned to the case since August. She says whenever they would be making progress with one worker, the case was reassigned to another worker who had no previous knowledge of the situation.

VOCM News has reached out to Eastern Health for comment on the matter.