A Dignified Death

Winner of the 2019 Andrea Walker Memorial Prize for writing on women’s and non-binary people’s health

- Megan Jensen

Canada’s population is aging, and we’re not prepared to offer people the death they deserve

On the first day of her nursing practicum at a long-term care facility, Jennifer Mallmes was tasked with bathing an elderly woman. It was silent when Jennifer entered the woman’s room and approached her bed. The elderly woman opened her eyes and asked Jennifer to brush her hair. Jennifer softly stroked the brush through the woman’s hair a couple of times. The woman said thank you, and then she died. Had it not been for Jennifer, she would have died alone in a dark, silent room.

In Canada, thousands of people die away from their homes and families in hospitals, hospices, and long-term care facilities each year. A disproportionately high number of them are women – 45 per cent of women die in nursing homes, compared to 29 per cent of men.

Women, historically branded as “caregivers,” provide 60 to 75 per cent of elder and life-limiting illness care. But when women themselves require end-of-life care, the central caregiving unit is down – women’s own needs are often considered secondary.

“I was angry for having been put in that position,” Mallmes recalls. “I was angry at the family for not being there. I was angry at myself for not having known what more I could have done for the woman in her final moments.”