London, Ont. nursing home has highest staff-to-resident abuse rate in the province
Earls Court Village was ordered in the fall to stop taking admissions
A CBC Marketplace investigation has found that a London, Ont. nursing home had the highest-reported rates of staff-to-resident abuse in 2016.
Earls Court Village counted 57 reports of abuse in 2016. At 128 long-term care beds overall, the abuse rate per 100 beds was logged at 44.53.
The next-highest abuse rate, at Birchwood Terrace in Kenora, Ont., was 17.71 per 100 beds.
In an email statement to CBC Marketplace, administrator Pat Bedford said that the high rates were due to increased reporting of suspected abuse, and that staff are encouraged to 'err on the side of caution' when it comes to reporting incidents.
"That sounds like an awfully high rate, even with an increase of reporting," said Jane Meadus, a lawyer with the Advocacy Centre for the Elderly.
"Even if it turns out that it was over-reporting, it was clearly things that they were very concerned about so there were obviously issues there."
Not the first red flag
In October, 2017, CBC News reported that Earls Court Village was notified by Karen Simpson, director of the long-term inspections branch, that they had to stop accepting new residents.
Reports from the Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care have revealed several issues in the home, including:
- Medications delayed by more than two hours;
- Residents going without help for bathing and toileting;
- Failure to promote a zero tolerance policy of abuse;
- Staff being hired without a criminal background check; and,
- A medication cart being left unlocked in a common area.
Earls Court Village has received orders from Simpson about several conditions that they must meet, including hiring external consultants to improve their staffing and nursing plans and reviewing their zero-tolerance policy.
Meadus added that both the cease of admissions and the director's orders are rare, and indicate serious concerns about the Earls Village Court.
"Either the concerns are very serious, or they're so numerous, or the non-compliance is so problematic that the director has to do these orders to ensure that [the home] is really being watched very carefully," she said.
The director's orders have already been extended to change the home's compliance date to February 15, 2018.
CBC News reached out to the Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care to ask why the compliance date was changed.
In an email statement, the Ministry said that the date was changed based on an action plan submitted by the licensee, and the time needed for them to achieve compliance.
Earls Court Village won't be allowed to take new residents until the director is satisfied that the home has addressed pre-existing risks, and that no new risks have been identified.
"The Ministry continues to work closely with the home to support them to come into compliance, as well as to ensure the safety and security of residents," said spokesperson David Jensen in an email statement.
The administrator from Earls Court Village has not responded to CBC London's request for further comment.
Methodology:
CBC analyzed six years (2011-2016) of data from Ontario's Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care, public records and the Canadian Institute for Health Information (CIHI). We compiled all abuse and neglect situations by caregivers and between residents reported by each long-term care facility in the province, as well as their self-reported percentage of residents with dementia and residents taking antipsychotics - without a proper diagnosis of psychosis. The abuse rates were normalized using the most recent number of licensed beds of each home - considering closures, openings and major merges. Some homes might have under-reported or failed to report during the time period we analyzed. Our analysis couldn't consider staffing ratios, as the province doesn't compile them.
Please also note the numbers also include suspected incidents of abuse or neglect, as reporting anything is mandatory for homes.
Numbers include emotional, verbal and physical abuse or neglect, as there are no current subcategories in the Critical Incidents System (CIS).