Police investigate CHSLD Herron
Police have begun an investigation into CHSLD Herron in Dorval, where 31 people have died and conditions have been described as horrible. The Journal finds that many serious questions had already been asked about conditions in other seniors’ homes owned by the same family.
mare 11:15 on 2020-04-12 Permalink
Weird that nobody could predict this, especially after similar situations occurred in senior residences in France, Spain,Italy, the Netherlands and other countries that are ahead on. Senior residencies are perfect-storm locations; lots of frail old people socializing and eating in close proximity with minimal staff (budget cuts and profit maximization). Staff is not trained for nursing, ill patients are normally immediately offloaded to hospitals. But now hospitals take only take seriously ill patients, so staff without PPE and proper training have to take care of the ill themselves. Staff gets infected, more residents get ill and die, staff panics and stay home and then care deteriorates to horrible levels.
I’ve read about situations like this for weeks in foreign newspapers, but the Quebec authorities had no clue, and didn’t do extra inspections? Was all attention and preparation directed at the hospitals? It certainly looks like it.
JaneyB 11:35 on 2020-04-12 Permalink
The owners are what get me. The govt had to actually get a court order to access patient files and learn about the deaths that took place. That doesn’t sound like a distressed and helpful owner to me. Moreover, patients and their families were paying between 4-10k per month (!) for care yet the employees were making minimum wage and the owners wouldn’t even provide PPE for them. I imagine we’ll hear other horror stories as their other institutions are investigated. I really hope the owners are charged and jailed for something. Greed like that is worse than a gun.
Private institutions have to be kept on a very short leash it seems, with constant inspections (that should have been done all along).
walkerp 13:27 on 2020-04-12 Permalink
Nothing will change substantially until we change the system of prioritizing shareholder profit above all else.
jeather 14:43 on 2020-04-13 Permalink
Apparently they have inspected them and will be watching several more closely but he isn’t announcing WHICH care homes need extra oversight? I am fairly sure it’s not the one my grandmother is in but REALLY.
qatzelok 22:54 on 2020-04-13 Permalink
I agree with walkerp. We, as a society, treat our elderly and our children, like we treat our recycling. We want it done by the government at the lowest possible cost, and this forces the government to outsource to scrappy for-profit companies. It’s the nature of competitive capitalism to act like this, and the mentality penetrates many aspects of life.