After 73 years together and marriage 69 Herbert and Audrey Goodine, an elderly Canadian couple, were forced to separate for the first time.
It was only a week before Christmas and they only asked the people in charge of the elderly care clinic where they were: to let them spend the holidays together.
But they denied it.
Herbert, 91, was transferred on Monday to a more advanced care center that he shared with Audrey, 89.
Now everyone is alone.
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The forced separation of the elderly, who have been together since he was 18 years old, and she 16 has generated outrage in Canada and social networks when asked if it is ethically justifiable to distance two people who have shared most of their lives for ” health reasons “.
The Canadian medical services, according to published in their Facebook account Dianne Phillips, the daughter of both, warned last Friday that Herbert should be transferred to a more advanced care center, since his health has waned in recent times.
After a recent medical evaluation, the specialists decided that the home was no longer the best place to accommodate it because the dementia suffered has progressed to a point where it requires a higher level of care.
The Canadian newspaper The Star reported that on Monday a van moved Herbert to another health center. Audrey, according to the report, accompanied him to the car and stayed in the same place while watching him go.
“Christmas is over for us”
According to the daughter, the news left her parents devastated since last Friday.
“When I spoke with them yesterday, I heard my mother cry and I could hear my father also crying back,” he said in the publication that was shared since Sunday thousands of times.
As explained by the daughter, what most affected the elderly was that the authorities took the decision to separate them just before the holidays, some dates with great emotional significance for both.
“My mother told me: ‘Christmas is over for us and this is the worst Christmas we will ever have, why did not you wait until after the holidays ?'” He explained.
Phillips explained in his publication that he understood that his father needed a higher level of care, but that he felt that the installation could have allowed the couple to spend at least the parties together.
“I feel that people need to know how flawed the system we are, the words that describe it are ‘unethical and cruel,'” he wrote.
“This should never happen to another human being.”
For now, the daughter said she will take them home during the holidays so they can, at least like that, spend Christmas together.
