LTC choking death: ‘I think they are talking about my grandmother’
Andrea Terry listened in shock to Premier Doug Ford’s emotional press conference this week about the damning military report on five Ontario long-term care homes.
When she heard that the choking death of a resident at Orchard Villa long-term care home in Pickering had been referred to the coroner for further investigation, she was certain that resident was her grandmother.
“I think they are talking about my grandmother,” said Terry, who lives in Ottawa.
Terry’s biological grandmother June Bendell died at the nursing home three weeks ago. The family was told at the time that the 90-year-old woman asphyxiated while being fed and that her death was an accident. But a report compiled by Canadian Armed Forces personnel sent in as emergency support at five Ontario seniors residences, paints another picture of the choking death of a resident.
Soldiers in the home noted a lack of proper positioning of residents — with the head of the bed raised — during meals. The risk of choking and aspiration is “therefore high,” the report on Orchard Villa says.
It goes on to describe a specific incident in which the method of feeding “appeared to have contributed” to the patient’s death. The report describes a code blue due to choking during feeding while supine, and said staff members were unable to dislodge the food or revive the resident.
The report also described cockroaches, flies and rotten food in the long-term care home.
The resident who choked to death was not identified, but members of Bendell’s family believe it was her. She died at the residence on May 8.
Ford said this week that the death has been referred to the provincial coroner for further investigation and said charges could be laid against Orchard Villa and other homes where filth and alleged abuse were reported by the military.
Terry, who was adopted as a child, had a close relationship with her biological grandmother, who had lived at Orchard Villa for more than a decade.
“She was an amazing woman, strict, but funny, great to talk to. She made me laugh.”
In recent years, Bendell had dementia, Terry said.
She said she’s relieved to hear there will be further investigation into the death of the resident who she believes is her grandmother.
“I want a thorough investigation on my grandmother to find out if the person feeding her is at fault,” she said. “My mother said it was an accident. How is that an accident when they are feeding her and she asphyxiated? To me it doesn’t make any sense.”
She said the issues raised in the reports by the military are unacceptable.
“Yet this is not a thing that just happened overnight. This has been going on for many years. It should have been addressed years ago.”
The military report sparked deeper investigations into the five homes it focused on as well as other homes in the province that are consider high risk. At Orchard Villa, at least 69 residents had died of COVID-19 as of Wednesday.
The province says it will launch in-depth investigations across the province over the next 21 days, although it has not said which homes will be investigated. Nor has it released a list of which homes in the province are considered high-risk.
In Ottawa, Madonna Care Community, Carlingview Manor and Montfort have all had large outbreaks of COVID -19 and numerous deaths. Hospital and public-health workers have gone in to assist and train workers on proper infection control.
The province has not said whether any Ottawa homes will be the focus of in-depth investigations in coming weeks.