The Chronicle Herald (Provincial)
N.S. won’t release full review
Public will only see recommendations due to lawsuit’s launch
The premier is refusing to revisit the province’s decision not to publicly release findings from a review into the fatal COVID-19 outbreak at Northwood Manor.
The premier pointed to a class-action suit against the province over its alleged role in the nursing home tragedy as the primary reason for deciding not to make the entire report public. He said that could dissuade Northwood or government officials from sharing information with the committee because they could potentially incriminate themselves while the class-action suit is ongoing. Northwood is also named in the lawsuit.
“We need people to come forward in this committee to be able to tell us exactly what it is they believe happened, what they believe changes should take place without incriminating themselves,” Mcneil said. “They need to have the flexibility and the desire to tell us what they want to do while this class-action suit is ongoing.”
The premier told reporters on Thursday that only the recommendations from the investigation, which are nonbinding, would be shared with the public on Sept. 15.
Details of the review that will probe the 53 COVID-19
related deaths at Northwood this spring were released Tuesday. The probe will be conducted by a quality improvement committee headed up by infectious disease consultant Dr. Chris Lata and former British Columbia associate deputy minister of health Lynn Stevenson.
The premier attempted to reassure Nova Scotians that the probe would get to the bottom of the tragedy and any recommendations in it would be implemented.
“What we will be making public is the recommendations that would best improve the system and that's what we will continue to do.”
NDP Leader Gary Burrill said the review does not meet the standard of accountability required in response to a major, large-scale tragedy.
“The government has said in effect we are going to write a book on the experience of long-term care in the light of the pandemic and you, the people of Nova Scotia are going to be able to read the last page of this book,” said Burrill. “You're not going to get to read the chapter on the research, the chapter on the analysis, the chapter on the evidence. All of that is to be behind a wall."
The province is also facing criticism over the review being too narrow in scope. It is tasked to specifically look at whether Northwood and the province were properly prepared to deal with an outbreak at Northwood, the largest nursing home east of Montreal. And whether their response to it was adequate. The committee will also examine staff scheduling practices and processes at the facility and best practices in effectively controlling and preventing the introduction and spread of COVID-19 in long-term care homes.
Both Burrill and Tory Leader Tim Houston have argued that the tragedy demands a full, independant public inquiry to get to the bottom of what happened at the facility and to ensure it doesn't happen again at any long-term care facility in the province.
Nova Scotia's long-term care facilities have been much harder hit by COVID-19 than other nursing homes in Atlantic Canada. There have been 57 COVID –related deaths of long-term care residents in Nova Scotia compared to only two in the rest of the region. Of the 16 nursing homes affected by the virus in Atlantic Canada, 13 were in Nova Scotia. Also, long-term care residents make up 90 per cent of all COVID19 deaths in Nova Scotia, the second-highest percentage in Canada.
Houston said the province is attempting to control the narrative when it should be fully transparent and accountable to the public. Houston said the government has several options to protect potential witnesses from incriminating themselves while still sharing the findings of the report.
"The review is not something I take great comfort in," he said. "What I think I would be interested in and Nova Scotians would be interested in is how the recommendations were arrived at and that means understanding the findings.”