Iqaluit elders suffer neglect and abuse

When Mary Akpalialuk’s children went to Iqaluit’s continuing care home for elders this past January to see their grandfather, Charlie Akpalialuk, they were shocked.

When they walked into his room they found him covered with his own excrement, picking at a filthy diaper.

Charlie was disabled after a stroke in 1999, and in 2003 moved into the home. It’s run by a not-for-profit group called the Pairijait Tigumavik Society, under a contract with the Government of Nunavut.

Mary and her family say it’s too late now for her father to get better living conditions; that’s because he died earlier this year.

But they still believe that the home’s wretched living conditions must be improved so that more elders don’t suffer the way their father and mother suffered.

“I want the abuse and neglect stopped,” Mary says.

As soon as Charlie and Annie Akpalialuk moved from Pangnirtung to live at the Iqaluit elders’ home, Mary and her family began to worry about their living conditions.

As Mary and her family members watched their parents fade away and die, they saw poor care, inedible food, dirt, and a lack of respect.

While in the care of the elders’ home staff, each parent suffered broken hips, force-feeding, dehydration and bedsores.

During their miserable stay at the elders home, the old couple endured cultural insensitivity from non-Inuit staff and verbal abuse from Inuit, Mary says, although she wasn’t always there when it occurred.

A few months before her father died, a worker reportedly told her restless father to “illurusirmuuraalulaurit” (go to your fucking room) and “sinipatiuraalulirit” (get the fuck to sleep.)

Charlie died May 23, 2006 at the age of 80, Annie, at 77, died in November of 2003.

Before her parents passed away, Mary tried many times to improve their situation, as is revealed in a neat file of correspondence in English and Inuktitut that Mary compiled.

They complained to Pairijait Tigumavik staff and management, to Nunavut Tunngavik Inc., to the GN’s health department, to doctors, to cabinet ministers and to Iqaluit MLAs.

They received letters signed by Leona Aglukaaq, the health minister, and Louis Tapardjuk, the elders’ minister. The letters offered platitudes, not help. None of Iqaluit’s three MLAs responded at all.

“They’re all useless. They didn’t help me out at all,” Mary said.

Ironically, this situation comes to light just as the GN is launching a public awarneness campaign on elder abuse, featuring posters, buttons and fridge magnets.

Mary says staff at the home responded to her family’s complaints with hostility. Mary says the RCMP once came to her home to ask her to stop harassing the home’s staff.

“All we wanted was proper care,” Mary says.

Mary fears the family’s complaints affected the quality of her parents’ care. In one instance, after Mary complained about her mother’s care, Annie was in the hospital two days later, and eight days later she was dead.

There were meetings with the home’s staff and managers, but they produced little change.

“I am writing in regards to my concerns for that facility my father is in. I see a lot of things happening and they are disturbing,” Mary said in a Sept. 2005 letter to Looseeosie Aipeelee, the director of Pairijait Tigumavik Society, which oversees the home.

The family also sent a long list of concerns to the elders’ home. Among other improvements, they wanted to see:

More country foods and better food instead of precooked Chinese foods, chicken wings, cabbage rolls, and spare ribs;
Better hygiene: no more elders left in soiled and wet diapers;
Better care and more supervision from staff so elders don’t wander away, protection against theft and better medication and other care;
A resident nurse;
More recreational activities and more physiotherapy;
More training for staff.
Many things have already been improved at the home since her father died, director Looseeosie Aipeelee told Nunatsiaq News.

He said he’s fired some staff due to complaints, trained new staff, put more country food on the menu and purchased new beds for the home. Residents are taken to church on Sunday.

“I think we have done a lot this year,” Aipeellee said.

Aipeelee said workers at the home still need more training although a resident nurse as yet to be hired. The GN has promised to hire one.

“We have to have a nurse down there. The elders have to be looked at every day,” he said.

But, despite the improvements that Aipeelee points to, Mary still wants to see a reorganization of the Pairijait Tigumavik Society. Ideally, she’d like to see its board get representation from NTI, the Qikiqtani Inuit Association and the GN, along with one or two elders.

As it stands now, Mary said she can’t sit on the board because the society’s current bylaws say regular society members must be residents of Iqaluit aged 50 and older.

Mary says she’s speaking publicly now because she doesn’t think the home has changed and most family members of residents are still too scared to talk.

“I would like other family members to speak up on behalf of their family members staying at the elders’ home or who had stayed there before to forward their concerns,” she says.