Vulnerable residents are ‘trapped’ in interim care home, families say
An incontinent man with Alzheimer’s repeatedly left in soiled clothes. A head injury not reported to the patient’s family. Seniors held in an old, deteriorating building with no sprinklers.
The allegations of neglect and substandard care are contained in letters the families of five patients at a nursing home in Sault Ste. Marie sent to Health Minister Eric Hoskins this month.
The nursing home — Cedarwood Lodge — was opened in 2015 to ease overcrowding at the local hospital by providing temporary stays for alternative-level-of-care patients — those taking up hospital beds because they can’t live independently and don’t yet have permanent care arrangements.
Patients were meant to stay there temporarily before being transferred to long-term-care homes, but two years later more than half who moved to the home when it opened remain.
“Nothing is being done to move the current residents to a proper care facility,” said one of the letters from the families, who didn’t provide their names, citing fear of backlash from staff. “Until all of the residents are moved to a proper long-term health-care facility their lives are at risk.”
Officials at Cedarwood and its owner — Autumnwood Mature Lifestyle Communities — refused to be interviewed, but said in a statement that the home’s “shortcomings were unacceptable and beneath the bar Cedarwood Lodge sets for itself.”
The Ministry of Health has acknowledged problems at Cedarwood pose a serious risk to residents and, after its inspectors documented multiple alleged cases of abuse in their reports on the home, ordered the facility on March 28 to stop taking new residents.
The long-term care sector has been urging the government to fund 2,500 to 5,000 new beds — at an operating cost of $52,000 each a year — to meet growing demand. But there was no new funding in the spring provincial budget for additional beds.
Instead, $24 million was earmarked for “innovative” ways of dealing with alternative-level-ofcare patients, including more interim beds for patients waiting for long-term care.
Hoskins said the province is working on expanding long-term care, but interim-bed solutions, which he stressed need to be “safe and supportive,” are used when it’s the right solution for a community.
“It is generally the result of a unique situation faced by that community where it’s felt that issuing those interim licences would be an appropriate response,” he said.
Hoskins said the interim nature of Cedarwood is not to blame for its problems, adding that the province is working to improve the facility. He said the home’s owners were ordered last month to institute new management at their own expense.
“It’s the top priority, not just to improve the safety, but the comfort and the requisite support for individuals who reside there,” he said.
Advocates, however, point to the problems at Cedarwood as an example of what can go wrong with interim care when there’s a shortage of long-term-care homes.
Cedarwood, which was opened in a former nursing home that had sat vacant for two years after a previous operator moved to a more modern building, was given a temporary, five-year licence in 2015 with a mandate to operate solely interim beds.
But the nine long-term-care homes in Sault Ste. Marie can only accommodate 24 new patients a month on average, and as of April, there were 655 people waiting for a spot, according to the local Community Care Access Centre.
That means Cedarwood’s patients have no idea when they’ll be able to move out of the facility, which, according to government inspection reports, has repeatedly been understaffed, failed to meet residents’ toilet and bathing needs, and has failed to provide proper care of wounds, pressure ulcers and bed sores at times.
The reports also allege incidents of patient-on-patient abuse.