Nursing home disputes facts in Wettlaufer hearing
LONDON, ONT. The Woodstock nursing home at the centre of Elizabeth Wettlaufer’s murder spree is firing back at Ontario’s nursing regulator, accusing it of misinformation as it moved to ban the ex-nurse from ever practising in the province again.
Caressant Care said some details presented by the College of Nurses of Ontario during the serial murderer’s disciplinary hearing Tuesday — specifically, about Wettlaufer’s firing by the longterm care home in March 2017 — weren’t accurate.
The disagreement over simple facts in the case of Wettlaufer — who murdered eight vulnerable Southwestern Ontarians at two nursing homes, and tried to kill four others — points to larger issues, critics say.
It’s an illustration, they argue, of an Ontario long-term care system in need of thorough investigation.
“What’s concerning is they’re fighting over these minor details, when the far more massive question is, ‘How the heck did this happen?’ ” said Wanda Morris of CARP, the Canadian Association of Retired Persons.
“It all points to a process that’s just not working well.”
On the heels of the disciplinary hearing, Caressant Care also revealed more details about what exactly got Wettlaufer fired from the home where she killed seven residents between 2007 and 2014, before going on to quickly land another job in London, at the Meadow Park home, where — as in the other murders — she administered a lethal dose of insulin to her final victim.
In a written statement Wednesday, the Woodstock home alleges Wettlaufer:
Committed 10 workplace violations over 2 1/2 years, about which the home wasn’t specific but which the college has said included medication errors;
Was suspended from the job three times for violations;
Was “terminated due to a medication error that resulted in putting a resident at risk.”
The most grave error, the college said, was administering insulin meant for one patient to another.
But Caressant Care is also taking issue with what the regulator said happened after Wettlaufer — now serving a life sentence in prison, with no chance of parole for 25 years — was fired March 31, 2014.
At Wettlaufer’s disciplinary hearing Tuesday, the college said it spoke with a senior staff member from Caressant Care after being notified of the former nurse’s termination.
At the time, the home’s nursing director “indicated there was no underlying issue or concern” about Wettlaufer, college counsel Megan Shortreed told the disciplinary panel. The nursing home disagrees. “Caressant Care has no records indicating that its leadership or staff believed or said this in response to any inquiry following the termination,” the company said in its statement Wednesday.
The Woodstock nursing home, in its statement, said the college reached out in July 2014 to say it received Wettlaufer’s termination notice — a 20-page report to the regulator, standard procedure all nursing homes must follow when nurses are fired.
“We did not hear from CNO (college) again on this matter until after the (criminal) charges were laid in 2016,” Caressant Care said.
After she was fired, Wettlaufer took a job at Meadow Park nursing home in London — a position she assumed within a month, according to her statement to police.
It was at Meadow Park where she murdered her final victim, 75-year-old Arpad Horvath, in August 2014.
Wettlaufer pleaded guilty to the charges against her, including two counts of aggravated assault against two women in her care, in June and was later sentenced to life in prison.
The same day as the sentencing, Ontario’s Liberal government announced it will hold an inquiry into the murders, but details — including who will head it, and its scope — haven’t been released yet.