Elders should be better taken care of

My 62-year-old father was lost at Ottawa’s airport going to the hospital recently. He was supposed to be met at the airport by translators or a hospital driver, but he did not even know which way to go because he can’t speak or read English.

When he was inside the Ottawa airport, a strange man asked my father to follow him out of the airport. My father started to follow him because he thought that the stranger was working for the hospital. The stranger asked him to follow him, because he thought that the stranger asked him to follow him. They walked for about half an hour.

Then my father realized that the man did not work for the hospital. He started walking back to the airport because he got scared of the man. When he got back to the airport, he stood near a police car, but the police officer wouldn’t get out and he had to get back to the airport to see if there were any Inuit around. Then he sat there alone and helpless because he didn’t know who to ask, since he can’t speak English.

I think the minister of health or the health board should do something about it. That’s what he was elected for!

Things like this shouldn’t happen. If they don’t do something about it, it’s going to happen again.

I would not go on the radio or on Nunatsiaq News if this did not happen to my 62-year-old father, who can’t speak English. I don’t want this to happen to another Inuk elder again.

Sheba Shamaiyuk
Iqaluit