An elderly Canadian couple is heartbroken after learning that they will be separated for the first time in seven decades a week before Christmas.
Herbert Goodine, 91, was told he must leave the long-term care facility where he lives with his wife Audrey Goodine, 89, and move into a nursing home.
The facility in Perth-Andover, New Brunswick, told the couple on Friday he must move that weekend.
Their story has sparked outrage across the country.
“When talking to my parents yesterday I listened to my mother weep and I could hear my father in the background,” their daughter Dianne Phillips wrote on Facebook on Sunday.
“My mother said, ‘Christmas is over for us now and this is the worst Christmas that we will ever have. Why could they not have waited till after the holidays?'”
Mrs Phillips’ post has since been shared 15,000 times.
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Mrs Phillips said she received a call on Friday from the provincial department that oversees long-term care saying that her father, whose health has declined recently, would have to be moved to a home with more advanced care.
She says that when she was not immediately able to make a decision, the department “forced them to make the decision on their own.”
Skip Twitter post by @karenpalmeryvr
Too sad! We must do better for our elders. New Brunswick couple sent to different care homes after 73 years — and days before Christmas https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2017/12/19/new-brunswick-couple-sent-to-different-care-homes-after-73-years-and-days-before-christmas.html … via @torontostar
New Brunswick couple sent to different care homes after 73 years — and days before Christmas |…
Officials decided the husband needs a higher level of care due to his dementia, therefore separating the elderly couple after 69 years of marriage and 73 years together.
