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MONTREAL – Residents of a long-term care facility in Montreal should receive a first dose of the vaccine against COVID-19 in the coming days and their families say they are ready as the province continues to report a high number of infections and deaths.
“The sooner I have this vaccine in me, the better it will be,” said Beverly Spanier, a resident of the Maimonides Donald Berman Geriatric Center, in the Côte-St-Luc neighborhood on Friday.
“The last thing I want to do in the world is make it worse here.”
The residence hard hit by COVID-19 is one of two, along with the Saint-Antoine accommodation center in Quebec, that have been chosen by the province to receive the first doses of Pfizer’s vaccine when it arrives.
“I am very grateful to receive the vaccine. I think we have to take it, said Ms Spanier. I think all of society is waiting. It is very important that we try in all possible ways to bring life back to normal. ”
Health Minister Christian Dubé told reporters in Quebec that he still expected to receive the first doses on Monday and a ministry spokeswoman confirmed that the vaccination was to start on the same day.
Minister Dubé has promised to start vaccination “as soon as we have” the doses.
Beverly Spanier, 75, said that whatever the schedule, she was ready for a return to normalcy.
“Grandchildren need to see their grandparents. People need to live normal lives. The sooner we get there, the better it will be, and if this vaccine can help us, let’s do it, ”she said in a telephone interview.
Joyce Shanks, whose father Harvey Stoliar is at the Maimonides center, claims her father gave oral consent to receive the vaccine.
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He has such severe short-term memory problems that sometimes he forgets there is a pandemic, she said. His father, however, was spared the virus.
Last month, the center had to transfer 20 patients to nearby hospitals during a COVID-19 outbreak that claimed the lives of 15 residents as of December 10.
“I was really, really scared, I was nervous, but I’m getting excited because in six weeks I will be able to say that my father has been through this pandemic,” she said, adding that half of residents of the center had been infected for months.
“I want to be able to come to the end and say my dad never had it, my dad was vaccinated and he’s safe.”
Josee Di Sano says she received a call this week asking if she would agree to her mother, Maria Di Clemente, receiving the vaccine. “They assured us that they would have nurses and doctors,” Ms. Di Sano testified on Friday.
Her 81-year-old mother, who has Alzheimer’s disease, contracted COVID-19 in March, but she has never had any symptoms. She received less care during the pandemic, however, and can no longer walk on her own.
She is otherwise healthy, so Ms. Di Sano and her family decided the vaccine was the best option.
“We’re always wrong, no matter what. It couldn’t be worse than now. Every time I go there I feel like I’m going to World War II … Everyone is falling in the face of (COVID-19), so we have to take the risk, ”he said. she explains.
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