Families must apply to testify at nursing home inquiry
LONDON, ONT. Their loved ones were killed at two Southwestern Ontario nursing homes, eight victims of ex-nurse Elizabeth Wettlaufer’s insulin-injection murders.
But if those families thought they would automatically have the right to be heard at an Ontario public inquiry into Wettlaufer’s crimes, they were mistaken.
Families found out Thursday they’ll have to apply for the legal right to take part — just like anyone else wanting to weigh in on the inquiry that will also examine government oversight in Ontario’s 630-home long-term care system.
“We’ve been pretty traumatized,” said Susan Horvath, whose father, Arpad Horvath Sr., the longterm care nurse’s final victim, was murdered by Wettlaufer in August 2014 in London.
“We’ve been through a lot, a lot right now psychologically and everything,” she said as lead lawyers for the inquiry announced earlier this week laid out more details at a London news conference.
The inquiry was announced five weeks after Wettlaufer, who killed seven residents of Caressant Care nursing home in Woodstock, and Horvath at Meadow Park nursing home in London, was sentenced to life in prison. The murders took place between 2007 and 2014.
Wettlaufer pleaded guilty to the murders, as well as to four attempted murder charges and two of aggravated assault — all, involving vulnerable people in her care.
On Tuesday, Justice Eileen Gillese of the Ontario Court of Appeal was appointed to probe not only the details of Wettlaufer’s crimes as the inquiry head, but the contributing circumstances, policies and procedures that may have allowed them to happen.
Inquiry leads will meet with victims’ families in coming weeks to provide details on the two-year inquiry. Families, and other groups, can then ask to present during the inquiry at hearings this November.
Certain groups will be given legal “standing,” the right to participate in the inquiry, and could even have their legal costs covered by the province, depending on need.
“Families may appear and if they satisfy the tests for standing, which is essentially having a direct and substantial interest in the proceedings, then yes, they’ll be given standing.” said William McDowell, lead counsel for the inquiry. “Obviously, they have a pretty strong case.” Horvath said she plans to apply. “Everybody is still looking for the answers,” she said. “It has hurt us so bad as victims because this is our flesh and blood.”
Where the inquiry will be held still isn’t known, but McDowell said its evidentiary hearings — dealing with Wettlaufer’s crimes, and expected to begin in May 2018 — will likely be held in Southwestern Ontario.
The policy and recommendations portion of the inquiry could take place in Toronto, closer to experts and provincial officials, he said.
Ontario New Democrat Leader Andrea Horwath, who made a twostop visit to the region Thursday, including to a Sarnia nursing home, said the inquiry called by the Liberal government doesn’t go far enough.
Horwath said she wants an indepth examination of long-term care funding and staffing issues, something she said the “very narrow public inquiry that the Liberals have commissioned” just won’t address.
“We think that it has to be much, much broader,” she said, promising a full review of the long-term care system if the NDP forms the government after an election due next year.
“We have made the commitment that we will expand the scope of that inquiry, and make sure that not only we get the analysis of what is wrong in long-term-care, but we get recommendations.”