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Abandoned in Ottawa

Homeless and gravely ill, Baffin resident struggles for survival

JANE GEORGE

Without a home to call his own, Palluq Manning, 37, is critically sick and alone in Ottawa, forgotten, apparently, by the Nunavut health system.

At least three times a week, Palluq knows where he will sleep. Then, from 11 p.m. to 5 a.m., he is hitched to a kidney dialysis machine, which filters his blood and does the work his damaged kidneys can no longer perform.

While Palluq rests and lets the dialysis cleanse his blood, he dreams. Even nightmares are better than the life he now lives.

"It's not ideal. It's hard, but what's even harder is that they promised to find me a place to live and they haven't lived up to their promise," Palluq said in an interview from Ottawa.

Sometimes suicide or returning to Iqaluit, where, without dialysis, he will die, seem like better choices.

"I am fed up. At one point I even shot up some heroin so I could die. It's not like I do heroin. I thought if I am going to kill myself, I am going to OD on heroin. But when I tried that, I just ended up having a bad three days of hangover after that terrible high," Palluq said.

Palluq's descent into despair started in 2002, when he was first sent to hospital with kidney failure - common among those who, like Palluq, suffer from diabetes.

At first, Palluq was able to stay at the Larga Baffin patient home for Nunavut residents in Ottawa and continue outpatient treatment, returning to Nunavut for brief periods.

But last summer, when Palluq was in Iqaluit to attend the Gordon Robertson Education Centre reunion, he became gravely ill and on July 14, was medevaced back to Ottawa.

Palluq lay in a coma for seven months and suffered three heart attacks. Doctors performed a tracheotomy and inserted a tube through a hole in his throat to help him breathe; his intestine ruptured; he had to get a colostomy bag; he developed ulcers.

"When I finally came around, I couldn't walk and was sent to the rehab centre for four to five months. During this time I was unable to walk."

He had no escort when he was released.

He was sent back to Larga Baffin, but learned he could no longer stay there, even though he can't return to Nunavut and get the treatment he needs to stay alive. That's because there is no dialysis machine in Nunavut.

Palluq was told to stay in Ottawa and find a place to live. He says social workers promised they would help him.

A rooming house turned out to be a bad place to stay and his few possessions were stolen. Months later, no one has found him a safer place, so he's still homeless, bouncing around from one place to the next and surviving on the kindness of friends and relatives. Once he stayed in a homeless shelter because he had nowhere else to go.

Out of his monthly $700 assistance cheque, Palluq pays for room and board, meals and transportation. When he wants to join friends for meals at Larga Baffin, he has to pay for the food himself. Occasionally, he goes to a movie.

"It's only $700 a month. I'm very limited, especially when it comes to income," he said.

Before Tungasuvinngat Inuit, the Ottawa-based resource centre for Inuit, assisted him, Palluq spent his own money on expensive supplies, such as colostomy bags. He spent $2,400 of his own money on them, and says he's still waiting to be reimbursed for about $1,000.

"Why am I writing? As a beneficiary of the Nunavut Land Claim I feel I should be entitled to receive better service," Palluq wrote in a letter to Nunavut's health department.

Palluq wants the GN to help pay for his food, a place for him to live, and the cost of transporting him back and forth to his frequent medical appointments in Ottawa.

"I don't even want to live here," said Palluq, who is originally from Cape Dorset.

He'd like to be at home or simply come back to Iqaluit where he had been living, for a visit. And he doesn't understand why the "care closer to home" policy is leaving him on his own in the city.

Palluq is trying to keep his spirits up, although he's almost ready to give up.

"I have attempted suicide because no one seems to take me seriously for what I'm going through," Palluq wrote.

He's hoping his recent plea to Nunavut won't fall on deaf ears and that someone will listen before it's too late.

No one from the GN's health department was available this week for comment on Palluq's situation.

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