Montreal family says home-care worker isn't showing up for 90-year-old mother

Montreal family says care workers often late The family of a 90-year-old woman from Park Extension says she’s not getting the home care services she depends on.

For more than three years, Soula Gouskos, 90, of Montreal's Park Extension neighbourhood, has depended on home-care workers from her local CLSC to feed her, bathe her and give her medicine.

They're supposed to show up twice a day during the week and four times a day on weekends.

Her son says they often show up late and, sometimes, not at all.

"When I leave for work," said Anthony Kontos, "I don't know if somebody is showing up for the lunch service to give her."

Kontos says his biggest stress comes from his mother's medication needs.

She takes pills four times a day, including a double dose at bedtime.

But last week, Kontos says the afternoon home-care worker showed up late, and the night one showed up two hours early, meaning Gouskos was given too much in too short a period.

"Which could put her life at risk," said Kontos.

In a statement, the local health agency for the area, the CIUSSS West-Central Montreal, said it wouldn't speak of this specific case but that it's added hours to home-care services.

Spokesperson Carl Theriault said in a statement that patients are encouraged to contact the CLSC if they feel they aren't receiving the services that have been agreed to.

"Once the information is received, appropriate measures will be taken to correct any problem," he said.

Kontos said he regularly complains, but nothing changes.

"I confronted the guy who didn't show up, and he told me, 'My pages were stuck together. I didn't see her name,'" he said.