Ottawa care home accused of neglecting hygiene for residents

Article content

Health-care workers at an Ottawa long-term care home have resorted to washing residents with pillowcases and torn bedding and drying them with paper towels amid chronic supply and staff shortages, say employees and union officials.

Article content

Article content

The Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE), which represents personal support workers, registered practical nurses, housekeeping staff and others at the home, is calling on the Ontario government to urgently investigate those and other concerns about the management and operation of Villa Marconi. The not-for-profit long-term care home, which is on Baseline Road near the Central Experimental Farm and has long been a focus of pride for members of the city’s Italian community, is managed by a private health management company.

Article content

“It takes a lot of moral courage and heightened concern about resident wellbeing for care home staff to whistleblow on their own employer about what they believe are multiple violations of Ontario’s long-term care act and mismanagement at the home,” CUPE said in a statement.

Workers are also owed a total of more than $400,000 in vacation pay from the care home dating back to early in the pandemic when they were not allowed to take vacations. For some workers, that back pay adds up to thousands of dollars. The home has been ordered by an arbitrator to pay that as well as some other, smaller, amounts owing. Workers also say the company has not always made required pension payments and paycheques are frequently wrong.

Michael Hurley, president of the Ontario Council of Hospital Unions (a division of CUPE), said he has had some “hair-raising” conversations with employees about the situation inside the home.

One personal support worker described arriving at work to find two face cloths and no towels. She was charged with helping four residents get up and ready for the day. The Ottawa Citizen agreed not to use her name and the names other others working in the facility because they fear reprisal.

Article content

Article content

“You dry (the residents) with whatever you have. I had a pillow case that I used for drying. I found a towel and assumed it was clean and washed (one resident) with one end and dried with the other,” she said, adding that she has also used hand towels when she can find them, or disposable paper towels from the bathrooms but said she worries the roughness of the paper will eventually break down residents’ skin.

“It was always a good home and now it is not. It is sad. It is like one of those homes you were reading about in the news during the pandemic that just neglect people. Today there was no heat in the dining room,” said the worker.

In an email to care home management that was read to the Ottawa Citizen, another staff member described arriving on shift to find very few white towels and none of the brown towels they are told to use for perineal care of residents – something that is crucial to prevent infection and skin breakdown, especially for residents who are incontinent.

“I would like to express to you on behalf of the staff members that it is extremely stressful to be at work when what is needed for you to do the job effectively is not available,” wrote the employee to management. She said they tried to find towels in other areas of the 128-bed long-term care home but “there were none to be found.”

Article content

Antonio Mariani, chairman of the board at Villa Marconi, issued a statement in response to questions from the Citizen: “Please be assured that the management team and board of directors take all concerns regarding the quality of care, employee conditions, and compliance matters very seriously. We are committed to addressing these issues thoroughly and transparently.”

He added that the home has a process for “addressing concerns directly” with stakeholders and regulatory bodies and would not provide in-person interviews.

The Ministry of Long-Term Care did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Hurley of the Ontario Council of Hospital Unions said he has never heard anything like the stories workers are telling the union – especially in a climate in which there are shortage of personal support workers and registered practical nurses.

“It is shocking to me. I can’t imagine the kind of dedication it would take to continue to work there even though some of the basic fundamentals of the employment contract are continuously not being respected,” said Hurley, adding that workers are frustrated, saddened and alarmed that supplies – such as those needed to wash people – aren’t available.

Article content

Several employees, all of whom asked to remain anonymous because of fear of reprisal from their employer, described searching, in vain, for clean linens to wash patients and spending part of their shifts trying to collect enough supplies to do their jobs properly and keep residents clean and healthy. A shortage of housekeeping staff means it is often impossible to find clean linens and towels, staff members said, forcing them to be creative about how to clean and bathe residents, some of whom are incontinent.

Staff members said there have also been shortages of other equipment and, for a period, call bells were not working because there were no chargers available to charge the pagers staff use to respond to resident calls. That issue, which was the subject of a recent Ministry of Long-Term Care investigation and compliance order, has since been resolved.

Workers said they have been accused of stealing towels and linens when they complain there are none to be found.

CUPE national service rep Sherry Wallace said she has spoken to some staff members, especially in housekeeping, who are exhausted and can’t keep up with the work. “A lot of them were crying today because they are so exhausted and frustrated,” she said.

Article content

She said many of the long-time care workers have gone “above and beyond” to make sure residents don’t go without, including buying tea and cookies for late night snacks for residents.

“They work over and above to make sure the residents aren’t impacted, but it is at their own cost,” she said. “There is only so much these guys can do. They can’t continue with such staff shortages and supply shortages to meet the needs of residents.”

She noted that the issue of vacation pay owed to employees dates back to 2023.

She said CUPE is asking the Ministry of Long-Term Care to do a thorough investigation of the entire home, as opposed to the more focused investigations that usually look at a single or several smaller issues.

“It needs to be a complete investigation of everything going on and not just piecemeal to get a sense of why there are ongoing issues,” she said. “We have to make sure they have the supplies they need to do their jobs.”

She noted that many members of Ottawa’s Italian community, some of whom raised funds for and even helped build the home, remain “passionate” about the home but may not be aware of “how much the staff is keeping things together. They can’t do it anymore.”

Wallace also said it is unusual, in her experience, for a not-for-profit home to be managed by a private company, as Villa Marconi has been for a number of years, by several different management companies. The home is currently managed by Responsive Health Management Inc., which reports to the board of directors. An on-site manager from the company did not respond to a request for comment.

Article content