Arne and Iris Sorbo will soon be reunited in the same Fraser Health care home after a year-and-a-half apart.
Their son Todd Sorbo is relieved, but he believes media pressure was behind the decision and said that’s not the way the health system should be run.
“Twenty-four hours after the paper came out, they got a spot for him,” said Sorbo, referring to a Feb. 10 NOW article that outlined his parents’ plight. “It’s ridiculous … Now is it fair to other people who don’t have someone to yell and scream on their behalf that they didn’t get in?”
Arne and Iris, who have been married for 58 years, were parted when Iris started needing full-time care for dementia in October 2013.
She was eventually placed at Normanna Rest Home in Burnaby, but by the time her husband needed residential care about a year later, there were no spots available that would reunite the couple.
Arne described the separation as “hell, absolutely hell.”
Todd Sorbo had been told his dad – currently living in private care in Langley – was on a waiting list to get into Normanna and that reuniting couples was a top priority for Fraser Health.
But according to the health authority, nine vacancies have come up at Normanna since Arne has be waiting, and his son said he got little information about why his dad wasn’t getting in or how much longer he could expect to wait.
On the same day that their parents’ story was told in the NOW, however, the Sorbo family got a call saying a bed had opened up for their dad.
The bed was promptly accepted, and Arne should be reunited with his wife on the weekend.
“I was very surprised,” his son Michael Sorbo told the NOW. “I sort of gave up on this whole thing. It’s been so stressful.”
Todd Sorbo is happy for his parents, but he said the public isn’t given enough information to ensure the process is fair and not just guided by those kicking up the biggest fuss.
“They don’t share anything with people,” he said of Fraser Health, “and I think maybe transparency would make the whole world a fair place. Obscurity and opacity leads to bad decisions”
His brother, Michael, agrees.
“You never get anything in writing,” he said of the health authority. “You never get anything that clarifies what’s going. There’s a waiting list and there’s different priorities, but they won’t tell you what they are.”
Normanna director of care Sue Hundal told the NOW Fraser Health makes the decisions about who fills the care home’s beds.
Hundal said she entered the latest vacancy at Normanna into the health authority’s Strata Pathways software system on Tuesday as a woman’s bed, but Fraser Health requested it be changed to a man’s bed to accommodate Arne.
It was the first time the health authority had ever asked Normanna to accommodate Arne, Hundal said.
She couldn’t comment on whether or not media attention had anything to do with the timing of Fraser Health’s request, but she said it is possible that the bed just came up at the right time.
“Sometimes it happens that there are more vacancies than the demand is,” Hundal said. “That could be maybe once or twice a year, but it does happen.”
Asked if Fraser Health was motivated by negative media attention to speed up Arne's placement, spokesperson Tasleem Juma said no.
"Facilities accommodate these needs whenever it is possible for them to do so," Juma said in an emailed statement. "This is an example of the system working. This is what we've been waiting for – Mr. Sorbo's needs matched the available bed, and there was no one else with higher needs to tak into consideration."
Todd Sorbo remained unconvinced.
“I don’t really believe that, but who am I to know?” he said.
