Woman’s Death Reclassified As COVID-Related

Public Health has reclassified the death of a Saint John nursing home resident as COVID-related, according to the woman’s family.

Joan Davis, a resident of the Tucker Hall nursing home at Shannex Parkland Saint John, died on Jan. 21 at the age of 79.

Davis had spent several days being treated in the COVID unit after testing positive for the virus, according to her son, Peter Lewis.

Her death was originally listed as stomach cancer, but Lewis said Public Health has since changed it to COVID-related.

“We’re feeling pretty good,” Lewis said in a phone interview Thursday. “It’s been a hard few days for sure, but you know what, it took the right people to come together to make things right and that’s what has happened.”

The Rothesay councillor took to Facebook on Sunday to share his story. The post was shared more than 200 times, he said, and led to extensive media coverage.

In a previous interview, Lewis said his mother had been living in Lily Court, a dementia unit at the nursing home, where a COVID-19 outbreak began earlier in January.

Lewis said while she had underlying conditions, including stomach cancer, she had been doing well until her COVID diagnosis.

“She was still able to walk through the unit, communicate with people, use her cell phone,” he said. “The nurses were just amazed that somebody with dementia was able to use a cell phone, which she certainly was able to do.”

But Davis’ health took a turn for the worst about five or six days after her diagnosis, said Lewis.

“She went from being fully functional, able to talk, to not being able to talk, not being able to communicate, not being able to swallow, not being able to eat, basically within hours becoming bedridden,” he said.

Lewis said he got a call Monday morning from Public Health, who told him they would go back review the case with staff and management from Shannex.

Later that day, Lewis received another call from health officials letting him know they had decided to change the cause of death to COVID-related.

“You learn a lot when you go through these things, and one thing I did learn is that it’s the physician and the facility that sign off on the death certificate,” he said. “It is reviewed by Public Health, but if they have a death certificate come through to them that says a cancer death, COVID-19 certainly would not have been on their radar.”

“I think by raising the awareness that what the issue was, I think it made Public Health aware of the situation and they went back and reviewed it and made the necessary changes.”

Lewis said he thinks his mother would be “pretty happy” with the outcome of her family’s efforts, adding he hopes no other family has to go through an “unpleasant experience” like this.

“Sometimes you do have to advocate for somebody — whether they’ve passed or even in their life — sometimes you’ve gotta step in and do what’s right and that’s all I was doing. I was just making sure that when she was put to rest and the family could grieve that everyone was the way it was supposed to be.”