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Diana Pepin couldn’t believe what she was hearing when she reviewed video from the cameras she keeps in her 85-year-old mother’s room at the city-run Peter D. Clark long-term care home.
She watched in shock as a personal support worker getting her disabled mother ready for bed, leaned close and asked: “Why is it taking you so long to die? They keep feeding you too much food, or what?”
“I couldn’t believe I was actually hearing correctly,” said Pepin. “I was shocked.”
Minutes earlier, that same worker had walked toward the bathroom, near where one of the cameras is, and said the word “bitch.” There was a second PSW in the room at the time.
Related
Pepin’s mother, who was badly injured in a car crash in 2001, has a form of dementia caused by brain injury. She can’t walk, talk, feed or dress herself. In August, she was hospitalized for 10 days in critical care. Her family thought she was going to die.
Pepin installed cameras in her mother’s room after the home limited her visits in 2016, using a controversial no-trespass order. The former nurse had complained about safety issues that the Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care later ordered the home to improve.
What she saw on the video, recorded on Sept. 19, shook Pepin enough that she began to review other video recordings taken in her mother’s room, with the help of lawyer Daniel Nassrallah and his firm DNG Nassrallah Law Offices. Nassrallah’s uncle was struck in the face by a personal support worker at another city-run long-term care home, Garry J. Armstrong, earlier this year, an incident that shone a spotlight on long-term care in the city.
Pepin and Nassrallah found other disturbing comments and conversations, including:
The Citizen watched portions of the videos, which also include a person support worker repeatedly saying “bye-bye” and “go bye-bye” to Pepin’s mother.
To be certain of the words, Nassrallah has hired a forensic audiologist to analyze the recording of the support worker asking the elderly woman “Why is it taking you so long to die?” To the best of his knowledge, he says, that is what was said.
Nassrallah said he sent a letter informing city long-term care officials, Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care officials and police of the contents of the video on Tuesday. On Wednesday, he, Pepin and her husband Paul, showed the videos to city officials and ministry officials.
The city announced Thursday morning that it had fired three workers over the “disturbing and offensive” verbal abuse of a resident.
Pepin calls the abuse “psychological torture.” She says her mother understand everything, although she is not verbal.
Nassrallah said the incident and others, including the abuse of his grandfather, “are not the isolated incidents that the City of Ottawa would like the public to believe.
“There is a wider systemic issue. We are not looking to just protect Diana’s mother, but to protect other vulnerable residents at Peter D. Clark and other long-term care facilities.”
Nassrallah said he has been contacted by numerous families — locally and around the world — with concerns about long-term care. He said he intends to continue working with people such as Pepin with concerns about the care their loved-ones are receiving.
“We are going to put the spotlight on the long-term care system, and everybody in the system. I will use my resources, as will the families, to insure that those individuals who seek to harm the vulnerable will be held accountable and the long-term care system will be repaired as a result of our efforts.”
Pepin said she is grateful she decided to install cameras in her mother’s room, but worries “if this is what they are doing in front of the cameras, what are they doing when there are no cameras.”
She said she tells her mother: “You look up at the camera at night and you know I am watching you. I see what is happening, you are not alone.”
epayne@postmedia.com
查看原文...
She watched in shock as a personal support worker getting her disabled mother ready for bed, leaned close and asked: “Why is it taking you so long to die? They keep feeding you too much food, or what?”
“I couldn’t believe I was actually hearing correctly,” said Pepin. “I was shocked.”
Minutes earlier, that same worker had walked toward the bathroom, near where one of the cameras is, and said the word “bitch.” There was a second PSW in the room at the time.
Related
Pepin’s mother, who was badly injured in a car crash in 2001, has a form of dementia caused by brain injury. She can’t walk, talk, feed or dress herself. In August, she was hospitalized for 10 days in critical care. Her family thought she was going to die.
Pepin installed cameras in her mother’s room after the home limited her visits in 2016, using a controversial no-trespass order. The former nurse had complained about safety issues that the Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care later ordered the home to improve.
What she saw on the video, recorded on Sept. 19, shook Pepin enough that she began to review other video recordings taken in her mother’s room, with the help of lawyer Daniel Nassrallah and his firm DNG Nassrallah Law Offices. Nassrallah’s uncle was struck in the face by a personal support worker at another city-run long-term care home, Garry J. Armstrong, earlier this year, an incident that shone a spotlight on long-term care in the city.
Pepin and Nassrallah found other disturbing comments and conversations, including:
- A comment from the same personal support worker to Pepin’s mother on Aug. 24. The worker seemingly told the elderly woman she was going to be away for four days and added: “When I come back, you’ll go.”
- Four days later, on Aug. 29, the same worker was filmed looking at the camera and saying: “You watch, bitch.”
- Two days later, on Aug. 31, the same worker and a second personal support worker discussed a registered practical nurse at the long-term care home who allegedly failed to administer medication to six residents. The support worker said the nurse left the medication in the pocket of her jacket in the lunchroom and tells her co-worker that if the nurse ever gives her a hard time, she will use it against the nurse.
The Citizen watched portions of the videos, which also include a person support worker repeatedly saying “bye-bye” and “go bye-bye” to Pepin’s mother.
To be certain of the words, Nassrallah has hired a forensic audiologist to analyze the recording of the support worker asking the elderly woman “Why is it taking you so long to die?” To the best of his knowledge, he says, that is what was said.
Nassrallah said he sent a letter informing city long-term care officials, Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care officials and police of the contents of the video on Tuesday. On Wednesday, he, Pepin and her husband Paul, showed the videos to city officials and ministry officials.
The city announced Thursday morning that it had fired three workers over the “disturbing and offensive” verbal abuse of a resident.
Pepin calls the abuse “psychological torture.” She says her mother understand everything, although she is not verbal.
Nassrallah said the incident and others, including the abuse of his grandfather, “are not the isolated incidents that the City of Ottawa would like the public to believe.
“There is a wider systemic issue. We are not looking to just protect Diana’s mother, but to protect other vulnerable residents at Peter D. Clark and other long-term care facilities.”
Nassrallah said he has been contacted by numerous families — locally and around the world — with concerns about long-term care. He said he intends to continue working with people such as Pepin with concerns about the care their loved-ones are receiving.
“We are going to put the spotlight on the long-term care system, and everybody in the system. I will use my resources, as will the families, to insure that those individuals who seek to harm the vulnerable will be held accountable and the long-term care system will be repaired as a result of our efforts.”
Pepin said she is grateful she decided to install cameras in her mother’s room, but worries “if this is what they are doing in front of the cameras, what are they doing when there are no cameras.”
She said she tells her mother: “You look up at the camera at night and you know I am watching you. I see what is happening, you are not alone.”
epayne@postmedia.com
查看原文...
