Families raise safety concerns over language barrier for Inuit elders at Ottawa care home

Some Nunavut elders, like Kootoo Toonoo's mother Simiga Toonoo, missed some of their opportunity to pass on their knowledge to youth in their home communities.

Before she died, Simiga was one of several elders who have been moved down South for elder care where they leave their home, family and culture behind, sometimes for the rest of their lives. She lived 2,091 kilometres away from Kinngait, Nunavut, to live at Embassy West Senior Living in Ottawa, a facility that cares for elders with more complex needs, specifically with dementia. 

However, the language barrier between Inuit elders and the Embassy West Senior Living staff has been raising some major safety concerns, and some families are calling on the Nunavut government to send the elders back to Nunavut.

There's been a growing number of elders sent to residential care facilities in the South, like Embassy West in Ottawa over the years. The Nunavut government confirmed in an email there are now 41 elders from the territory in the Ottawa care home.

Kootoo Toonoo stayed with her mom for a month before she died, and the language barrier is the first thing she noticed.

"The elders speak their language and they're not being understood at all, it was extremely disheartening to witness," said Kootoo. "It was heartbreaking."

Kootoo found papers that elders used to translate specified requests, like asking for water or needing to use the washroom. But soon after living with her mother, she found medication that her mother was supposed to take, but had tried to dispose of.