‘Gap’ between Ont. nursing watchdog and care homes

A communications “gap” existed between Ontario’s nursing watchdog and the care home where Elizabeth Wettlaufer killed several residents, the commissioner of a public inquiry said Wednesday as the two sides discussed why an investigation was never conducted into allegations the nurse was abusive to patients.

Wettlaufer, 51, has confessed to murdering eight patients — and attempting to kill several more — over the course of nearly a decade by injecting them with overdoses of insulin at care homes and private residences across the province.

She was disciplined several times by her employers at Caressant Care, in Woodstock, Ont., who ultimately fired her in 2014 after she made multiple errors while administering medication, the inquiry into Wettlaufer’s conduct has heard.

Caressant sent the College of Nurses of Ontario a “termination report” on Wettlaufer, outlining some of her transgressions and saying it had several other documented incidents on file, but the watchdog did not probe deeper into those cases, the inquiry heard.

“There is a gap here, there’s no question in my mind,” inquiry commissioner Eileen Gillese said Wednesday. “Caressant Care thought that it had prepared a report, which should have alerted the college to not only to the concerns it outlined but the concerns and incidents before it.”

Gillese is expected to release her final recommendations by July 31, 2019.