Three more deaths at Maples Personal Care Home spark outrage

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This article was published 07/11/2020 (1547 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A new rapid response team will now be on site 24 hours a day to provide medical care to residents at the Maples Personal Care Home starting Saturday night, one day after paramedics rushed to the COVID-19-stricken nursing home and a report of distressing scenes surfaced on social media.

The province has no plans to call in the military or take over management of the facility, even as the number of deaths at the facility rose to 22, including eight in the previous 48 hours, and family members voiced concerns high demands on staff were resulting in inadequate care for residents.

There are currently 169 residents at the 200-bed facility. Since its outbreak began, at least 106 residents and 43 staff have tested positive for COVID-19. Some of those are now considered recovered and, in the case of staff, have returned to work.

This ongoing crisis appeared to reach a breaking point Friday night, when paramedics were called to assess and treat a dozen residents. Two were found dead when paramedics arrived, confirmed Gina Trinidad, the WRHA’s chief operating officer of long-term care, in a hastily-organized news conference Saturday evening.

Both residents were previously receiving end-of-life care, one of them for COVID-19. In total, three more Manitobans died of COVID-19 linked to the facility on Friday, including a man in his 70s, a woman in her 60s and a woman in her 80s. Twenty-two people have now died as a result of that outbreak, Trinidad said. 

The same night, three other residents were taken to hospital, including one in critical condition, the Winnipeg Fire Paramedic Service confirmed. The remaining residents were treated on site, including with IV fluids for dehydration.

Hours later, on Saturday morning, the public was alerted to the situation when a post surfaced on social media site Reddit and quickly went viral. The post’s author identified themself as a Winnipeg paramedic; the Free Press did communicate with the writer, who did not want to disclose their identity fearing professional repercussions. 

The post described how paramedics found a “nightmare” situation at Maples, with overburdened staff and residents who were dehydrated or hungry. The post also said medics found the two residents who died appeared to have been dead for some time, and that rigidity and lividity had already set into the bodies. 

As public outrage grew, Manitoba health minister Cameron Friesen Tweeted he was “devastated” to learn about the situation at the care home, and he had just left an “urgent meeting” in which he directed leaders with WRHA and Revera, the private company which runs Maples, to provide answers to Manitobans that same day. 

The news conference was announced shortly therafter. 

Trinidad, who had been on site at Maples while paramedics were there, confirmed paramedics had provided IV therapy to residents, but denied they helped with feeding. When asked specifically whether the report rigor mortis had set into the bodies was accurate, she replied the deceased patients had been monitored. 

“Residents at end-of-life care, which would have included the couple of residents (who died Friday) evening, were monitored by Maples staff, the nurses, every hour,” Trinidad said. 

In response to Friday night’s incident, Trinidad said, the province was assembling a rapid response team that would be on site 24/7 to provide medical monitoring and treatment. This team, which could also be deployed to other sites as needed, will include paramedics, a respiratory therapist and other medical professionals. 

As far as staffing, Jason Chester, Revera’s vice president of long-term care operations for Western Canada, said that the facility had its full complement of seven nurses and 13 of its usual 15 health care aides during the Friday evening shift when paramedics were called. It had 100 per cent of its assigned staffing during the night shift, he said. 

According to Chester, the facility has been able to maintain the provincial minimum of 3.6 hours of care per resident. 

Eddie Calisto-Tavares, who is allowed access to the facility to care for her frail 88-year-old father with COVID-19, said the facility appears to remain badly understaffed. On Thursday night, Calisto-Tavares waited over 45 minutes for help to change her father’s soiled diapers; nobody came until she threatened to call 911. 

On Friday night, she also saw no health care aides working in her father’s section, only a lone nurse rushing to keep up with the workload. Maples staff “genuinely care about the residents,” she said, but in her opinion there are simply not enough. She sometimes hears residents with dementia crying for long periods of time.

“We still have more security guards than we have health care professionals,” Calisto-Tavares said on Friday, noting she has seen some staff increase at the facility in recent days, including the general workers contracted to help with non-health care tasks such as cleaning or fetching items for nurses.

In response to a question about what Calisto-Tavares had witnessed, Chester said the level of acute needs in sick residents, and the fact they’re confined to their rooms, may make it look as if fewer staff are present. They are “learning as they go” in terms of pandemic staffing, he said, and there “is an opportunity to look at that a little more closely at the staffing requirements for that particular issue.”  

“It has become a little more challenging for staff to reach everybody, and we do have a lot more individuals requiring care because of the virus,” he said.

Trinidad acknowledged staffing has been a problem, especially in personal care homes, through the pandemic. 

“What we did not anticipate, or certainly needed to… plan better for is the impact this would have on our staffing in personal care homes,” Trinidad said. “It does make it very challenging when you already have baseline staffing in a personal care home, and one day you have 16 staff who either have to self-isolate or are ill.

“That planning, I will be the first to say could certainly have been improved in terms of preparing our staffing resources to manage this.” 

Earlier this week, Revera Living called on the Red Cross to assist with staff support at the Maples and Parkview Place, the two local facilities with the most severe outbreaks. Red Cross aides would be deployed to help on non-medical tasks, including assistance with meals and offering companionship to residents. 

On Thursday, the Red Cross confirmed it had begun its assessments. Trinidad said the WRHA has been engaged with the Red Cross, and that its team will prioritze the Maples facility and expects to be on site on Friday. Nov. 13. 

In a statement Saturday, Manitoba NDP leader Wab Kinew called reports of the incident “shocking” and “deeply concerning.” He called on the province to call on “any resource,” including the military. Earlier in the pandemic, the military had been deployed to help at overwhelmed nursing homes in Ontario and Quebec. 

“The Pallister government needs to step in today to make sure seniors and residents are receiving the care they need,” Kinew said. “Lives are hanging in the balance and there is no reason for delay.”

The Manitoba Liberal party also put out a statement on Saturday, calling for an immediate provincial takeover of the Maples and Parkview Place facilities, rapid testing of all residents, and a plan to move COVID-19 negative residents to an alternate site supported by staff. 

“This is heartbreaking for families and even worse, it was preventable,” said Liberal health critic Dr. Jon Gerrard. “We need immediate action and immediate resources to fix this.”

melissa.martin@freepress.mb.ca