Case reference: MAID-ON-2021-5WNV · Niagara Falls, Ontario · Died by MAID · Recorded by the register as a MAID victim
Who he was
Chris Gladders was from Hamilton, Ontario. At 30 he was diagnosed with Fabry disease, a rare genetic disorder that raises the risk of heart attacks, strokes and serious kidney problems. His older brother, Shawn, was close to him.
Shawn says his brother went from using a walker to pulling himself along on his backside, with terrible open sores.
What happened
After a stroke, Chris spent six months in a Hamilton hospital. During the first wave of COVID-19, he was moved to Greycliff Manor, a retirement home in Niagara Falls, to wait for a long-term care bed. Niagara Falls MPP Wayne Gates said it was a residence that could not handle Chris’s complex needs. He had several more mild strokes there.
Photo: Global News (source)
The Retirement Homes Regulatory Authority had revoked the home’s licence on 3 November 2020, after 11 inspection reports that year citing problems including infection control, bed bugs, drug administration and a lack of continence products. The home was given until June 2021 to transition residents out. On 22 January 2021, Shawn entered his brother’s room for the first time. He says there was urine and feces on the floor, the sheets were filthy and the toilet was plugged. That night, Chris pulled the call bell for 45 minutes while on the phone with Shawn, and no one came. The next day, 23 January 2021, a nurse practitioner provided MAID, with Shawn at his side. Chris was 35.
Why they were pushed toward MAID
In his brother’s account, it was neglect that pushed Chris toward MAID, as much as disease. Shawn says his brother “deteriorated into a shell” of himself in his last months because the home could not meet his needs, and that he did not want to go on living there. He believes Chris should have been in palliative care. The regulator’s inspection reports and licence revocation back up the concerns about the home. The link between the home’s conditions and Chris’s decision is his family’s account.
What their family says
“It was terrible,” Shawn told the Toronto Sun. “It broke my heart.” He said Chris’s mind was already made up by then.
“There was no way he should have spent the last days of his life there,” Shawn said. “He should have been sent to palliative care … it was inhumane and disgusting.” He said Chris never complained, and he had never seen how his brother lived, because staff always brought Chris out to meet him in the parking lot.
What this case shows
Chris Gladders was 35, disabled after a stroke, and left in a home that regulators had already found unfit. He died by MAID after being left in a filthy room where no one answered his call bell. His case shows how the failures of Ontario’s care homes can become the backdrop for an assisted death.
Sources
- Toronto Sun: LEVY: Man says brother, 35, with rare disease died in squalor at retirement home
- CBC News: Niagara MPP calls for province to take over ‘disgusting’ Greycliff Manor after 35-year-old dies
- Global News: Hamilton man dies amid ‘disturbing’ living conditions at Niagara Falls home, says family
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