Letter: Nursing home resident attacked in room

It was 6:30 p.m. on a Tuesday evening. The phone rings. It was my 91-year-old sister calling from a local nursing home in a tearful panic, screaming for help.

Someone in the home walked into her room and attacked her, shouting at her that this was her room, and began pushing and kicking her.

My sister, sitting in a wheelchair, attempted to defend herself over a 20-minute period before help arrived.

Calling the nursing home was to no avail, as there is only an answering machine, and in the past, no one ever returned my calls.

Arriving at the home and expressing my feelings concerning the incident, I was told by the nurse on the floor the episode was a rare occurrence and shouldn’t happen again.

The patient that attacked her had advanced dementia and was quickly removed to her own room by an assistant. I was angry that patients suffering from dementia and Alzheimer’s were living in the same section as the mentally sound patients.

The nurse explained that their Alzheimer’s section was overcapacity and the overflow had to be placed with other residents in the home.

Evidently this is a common practice in the Sudbury area, as my other sister in another nursing home was attacked almost daily until we demanded that she be moved to another floor.

This situation is everyone’s problem. It is time that this community made the improving of services to dementia patients a priority for the Sudbury area.

Our newly elected city council must examine ways to increase living quarters for these people who are mostly frail helpless seniors and recognize that they are human beings deserving of the utmost care we can provide.

Tony Sottile
Sudbury