‘Please tell the little girl to get out of my room.’
I worked night shift as a palliative care RN in a very big, very old nursing home. It’s important to note that this home and the religious organization that ran it are currently part of the royal inquiry into the institutional response to the abuse of children. The nurses that had worked there for 30+ years used to delight in telling younger staff that when it was used as a children’s home they used to bury children that died in the rose garden. This old rose garden was apparently under a newer wing of the home.
At least four times in my two years of working there we would have elderly, close to death patients wake, totally lucid in the dead of night and ask us ‘please tell the little girl to get out of my room’ or ‘please get that little boy out of the corner, he’s looking at me.’
Being in this huge, dark, old, creepy building that had a very awful history and then that happening? Fuck that, I would never do my rounds alone when it happened, it was terrifying! It made my blood run cold and I’d get a friend to work with me the rest of the night.
I was not the only person this happened to, either. It was a regular occurrence.
