(January 24, 2021)<\/p>\n
By: Sue-Ann Levy, Ottawa Sun<\/p>\n
Pnina Ptasznik was horrified last April when she got on a Zoom call to find her 88-yearold mom staring into space with only “no, no, no” coming out of her mouth.<\/p>\n
Toronto’s L’Chaim Retirement Home was in a COVID-19 outbreak at the time, but Freda Rosenblatt repeatedly tested negative.<\/p>\n
But she did have a fever – a symptom of what the home’s doctor diagnosed as a UTI infection on April 14.<\/p>\n
She was put on antibiotics but didn’t get better.<\/p>\n
“She couldn’t answer me,” Ptasznik said recently, recalling that frightening Zoom call. “It was completely abnormal.”<\/p>\n
A hospital report on April 24 said she was suffering from acute kidney failure and dehydration.<\/p>\n
Rosenblatt, who suffered from dementia and was a child of the Holocaust, remained in hospital for four weeks. She died June 6.<\/p>\n
Linda Grossman’s husband died on June 12 at 86 – exactly three days after she pulled him out of L’Chaim.<\/p>\n
She said he tested positive for COVID-19 – one of 17 residents who did – but recovered. Near the end, he was no longer eating or drinking.<\/p>\n
Another five residents died from COVID-19.<\/p>\n
Grossman said that to her knowledge he was isolated in his room for more than three weeks.<\/p>\n
She wanted him to spend his final days surrounded by love and family.<\/p>\n
“We felt he was a person parked in a chair with minimal attention waiting to die,” she said of the former dentist, who also suffered from dementia.<\/p>\n
The cost to house Rosenblatt at this home was $6,400 a month, plus $250 for toiletries. The Grossman family was paying $7,247 per month.<\/p>\n
Both ladies complained to the Retirement Homes Regulatory Authority – criticized in an 84-page December auditor general’s report over concerns about resident care and staffing levels, little oversight by the provincial ministry in charge of the RHRA and a bias toward operators.<\/p>\n
Although they feel the RHRA inspector was conscientious – making a finding of neglect in December – they say they were never informed if there were consequences for L’Chaim’s owner.<\/p>\n
“That is not for public knowledge,” Grossman said.<\/p>\n
The final inspection report is as vague, if not more so, than those issued by the Long-Term Care Ministry. As is the case with LTC homes, the RHRA has closed the case file, seemingly acting on blind faith that the operator has taken “corrective action.”<\/p>\n
Speaking on behalf of owner Judy Cohen, lawyer Rob Karrass said that while the pandemic has been a challenging time for everyone, they have “worked tirelessly with the residents and their families” to ensure a healthy, safe and positive environment.<\/p>\n
He said the December RHRA report has “nothing to do with a death at L’Chaim,” there was no “inaction or pattern of inaction” that jeopardized the resident’s health, and he that her condition was stabilized in hospital where she contracted COVID-19 and died three months later Rosenblatt’s family said emphatically she never had COVID-19, and they have the medical records to prove it.<\/p>\n
But these issues are not limited to L’Chaim.<\/p>\n
According to the Ontario Health Coalition, some 171 retirement homes of 700 in Ontario are in outbreak.<\/p>\n
Yet there has been little focus on these facilities.<\/p>\n
Two women with parents at Revera-owned Forest Hill Place in Toronto, who spoke to me on condition of anonymity, said they had to deal with a COVID outbreak that lasted from Nov. 4 to Jan. 16.<\/p>\n
Five residents succumbed to the deadly virus.<\/p>\n
One source said security guards were brought in instead of more PSWs to residents stayed in their room during the lockdown.<\/p>\n
Natalie Mehra, executive director of the OHC, said the RHRA provides “even less oversight” than that conducted over LTC homes.<\/p>\n
Fundamentally, she said, they’re “self-regulating” in an industry dominated by large chains.<\/p>\n
She said one big concern is retirement homes are being “misused” as another tier of LTC with patients being transferred there from hospitals to await an LTC bed.<\/p>\n
“It’s like having the fox guarding the henhouse,” she said. “We have very serious concerns about oversight.”<\/p>\n