Weeks away from the care-home placement his family fought for years to obtain, 11-year-old Dominick Benoit has died in hospital.

Renee Benoit says her greatest fear, that her son would get sick in hospital and not be able to recover, has come true.

Dominick, who had a form of cerebral palsy, died Sunday morning in the IWK Health Centre in Halifax. His mother said he had the flu.

For two years, he had lived in hospital in Kentville, N.S.

His family, living two hours away in the Truro area, had been trying all the while to get him placed into a smaller, better equipped home closer to his family.

“We fought, we tried, it just didn't happen. We were so close,” Renee said in a statement.

Living with spastic quadriplegic cerebral palsy, Dominick had lived in a long-term care facility, but had to leave because officials there said his needs were too great for them to care for him.

In Feburary, while living in hospital in Kentville, Dominick was sick for three weeks after contracting pneumonia.

He bounced back, but fell ill again, and was airlifted to Halifax last Monday. Within an hour he was on life support.

Renee says they were weeks away from finding Dominick a new placement closer to home.

Through that process, Brenda Hardiman of Advocating Parents of Nova Scotia, had been working with the family and lobbying government to find Dominick a home.

“Two years is too long for a young boy to be languishing in a hospital,” Hardiman said.

The health department, district health authority and the Victorian Order of Nurses were all involved in the long process of finding Dominick a new placement closer to home.

A statement from the Colchester East Hants Health Authority said they were working out the details of Dominick’s relocation, such as finalizing equipment, and things were coming together for an early spring move-in.

Health Minister Leo Glavine said he’s kept a close eye on the situation since taking on the portfolio in Fall 2013, meeting with the family shortly after that.

“Dominick's high care needs posed some difficulties for moving him closer to home. We also wanted to be assured staff hired were trained in Dominick's particular care needs,” a statement from Glavine read.

From the family’s perspective, the two-year wait is unacceptable.

“The system failed us, and not for our lack of trying,” Dominick’s mother said.

She also said Dominick’s death shouldn’t be the end of the matter.

“We are going to be asking that the ombudsman's office do an investigation because this should not have happened to Dominick, and it most certainly shouldn't happen to anybody else,” she said.

A GoFundMe page has been set up seeking support to help the family afford its medical-related expenses.

With files from CTV Atlantic’s Jacqueline Foster