Family only learns details of father’s death from a reporter
Senior’s family never learned circumstances of his death — until now
Pauline D’Amour sat in stunned silence as she learned for the first time the details of her father’s death.
Marcel D’Amour died two years ago at age 82 while in care at Residence Saint-Louis, his body found lying face down next to his wheelchair outside on the property — a 198-bed long-term care facility on Hiawatha Park Road in Orléans.
Since 2012, at least 17 people have died in Ottawa long-term care homes. In each case, the care residents received before their deaths led to citations for failing to comply with provincial legislation, an investigation by this newspaper found.
Through a substantive review of ministry inspection reports, this newspaper also uncovered 163 reported abuse cases and 2,033 instances of non-compliance with provincial regulations.
The death of D’Amour accounted for numerous citations against Residence Saint-Louis, the worstoffending home for non-compliance since 2012. But that’s something his family never learned, until now.
“We never got any results from the investigations,” said Pauline D’Amour.
“The nurse told me they do an investigation and she told me to look for (the results) on the internet. I never saw anything.”
The Gatineau woman had asked for the results of an investigation into D’Amour’s death on Sept. 5, 2015, and she said administrators told the grieving daughter to look it up on the Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care website.
She could barely contain her anger two years later when told by a reporter the results of that investigation.
“What? Oh my God, come on,” she exclaimed when told staff had waited hours before calling police after Marcel D’Amour was reported missing from his room that day. She recalled getting the voice mail from the home that evening, and contacting a nurse around 7 p.m., urging staff to “do what was necessary” to find him.
By that time, nursing staff hadn’t seen her father since his noon medications. He wasn’t in his room when they went to deliver his next round at 4 p.m.
He was still missing for 5 p.m. suppertime, which, as a diabetic, he never missed.
“When the nurse called me, and I found that out that my father wasn’t there for supper, I said, ‘Are you looking for him?’” said D’Amour.
According to a timeline established in a ministry report, nursing staff did not comply with established Code Yellow procedures for a missing patient.
According to the report into Marcel D’Amour’s death (though the public report does not identify the resident by name or gender), staff left voice messages with the man’s next of kin around 5:30 p.m. and made contact at 7 p.m. that evening.
Pauline D’Amour recalls answering “no” when a nurse asked whether the missing man was with family. She implored the nurse to find her father.
Despite the family’s pleas, a nurse told staff “to not contact the police department for now,” as D’Amour had been known to leave the grounds without notifying nursing staff, according to the report.
When Pauline D’Amour learned those details of the ministry inspection into her father’s death, she paused in silence before saying only, “Appalling.”
Instead, staff asked a security guard to search the property around 8 p.m., a search the unnamed guard conducted in his personal car, “getting out of the vehicle occasionally and shining his high-beam into the darkness.”