Families welcome probe into Maples care home

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 29/07/2021 (993 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Families who lost a loved one during the COVID-19 outbreak at a Winnipeg care home welcome an investigation into the tragedy.

Manitoba’s Protection for Persons in Care Office is investigating allegations of abuse and neglect at Maples Long Term Care Home after 57 residents died last fall.

“I’m happy that at least they are doing their due diligence,” said advocate Eddie Calisto Tavares, whose 88-year-old father died at Maples in November.

“There’s no way they were doing what they were supposed to be doing when what happened happened, so I’m good about that.”

Calisto Tavares, along with families who have formed a group called the Families Voices Task Force, maintain the lapses in care at Maples during the fall amounted to abuse, especially for residents who had Alzheimer’s and dementia, who reportedly experienced significant gaps in care as staffing shortages left residents unattended for several hours at a time.

“The neglect was so evident; it was so blatant,” said Calisto Tavares.

Despite calls for accountability from the task force and other families, results of the investigation are unlikely to be made public.

In a statement provided to the Free Press Friday, a spokesperson for the department noted the inquiry was sparked after reports of abuse and neglect were laid against the care home in November 2020.

According to the provided statement, the department is responsible for looking into “reports of suspected patient/resident abuse and neglect in designated health care facilities,” and is charged with determining “whether a more extensive investigation is warranted.”

“The investigation is ongoing at this time. Given the sensitive nature of (the office’s) investigations and the significant personal health information that is reviewed, investigation findings are treated as confidential and not publically shared,” the statement continued, adding disclosing any findings would be “premature” at this time.

The province stated “a number of” investigators are working on the case.

The licences for Maples Long Term Care Home and Parkview Place, both owned by Ontario-based Revera Inc., are under review. Neither home is allowed to accept new residents. Thirty residents died at Parkview Place during the fall’s COVID-19 outbreaks.

Calisto Tavares said new admissions should not be allowed until several staffing improvements are made at the facilities.

The families task force has been advocating for changes that would ensure 70 per cent of care-home staff are full-time employees, front-line staff are trained to support patients with Alzheimer’s and dementia, and a provincial seniors advocate is installed to monitor care.

“They have totally ignored our pleas,” said Calisto Tavares.

“It would show a willingness in good faith of re-establishing some of that trust that has been so deeply breached, and yet we’ve had no movement. I’ve had no responses from the minister,” she said.

The province, along with the Winnipeg Regional Health Authority and Revera, are working to implement measures recommended in the Stevenson Report — a 74-page document that arose from an independent review of Manitoba care homes last winter.

The latest update on those recommendations was released quietly on May 6, leaving family members like Calisto Tavares in the dark, she said. Just two of the 17 recommendations — both site-specific recommendations for operations at Maples — have been listed as fully complete. The rest remain listed as active, or in progress.

Health Minister Heather Stefanson was not made available for an interview Friday. A spokesperson for the minister provided a short statement claiming “work is well underway to implement the recommendations of the Stevenson report, not only at the Maples site, but at all 125 personal care homes across the province.”

A spokesperson for the WRHA declined to respond to Free Press requests for comment Friday afternoon, instead offering to comment next week.

julia-simone.rutgers@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @jsrutgers

progress-report-maples-carehome