When Kathryn Butler Malette learned her younger sister was diagnosed with COVID-19, she was confronted with a waking nightmare: that her beloved sibling might die alone.
While Ontario’s government has said facilities can allow end-of-life visits, Butler Malette said she was told the Ottawa-area long-term care home where her sister lives didn’t want to chance it, given the magnitude of the outbreak they were experiencing. “I was there when my mother passed away.
I was holding her when she passed away. And the thought that I could not be there for my sister, I couldn’t bear it. I could not bear the thought of it,” she said.