Winnipeg woman says father's room at Maples care home filthy with old food, urine on the bed, floor

A Winnipeg woman is speaking out after finding her father, a resident of Maples Long Term Care Home, soaked in his own urine — a problem she says happens consistently.

Dee-Dee Andrews says every time she visits her 73-year-old father, Lloyd Bone, she ends up spending much of the time ensuring his basic needs are met and his room is clean.

"I go in there, my dad's hungry, thirsty, there's urine on his bed, under his bed, food all over the place. It's a sight," Andrews said in an interview on Monday.

"Every time I go there, what I'm seeing over and over and over again, week after week, day after day, month after month, I have no words for it ... The drunk tank is cleaner than this."

Andrews said her father was transferred to Maples — a care home operated by Revera Inc., an Ontario-based company — after Parkview Place, another Revera-owned personal care home, was shuttered in 2022.

For the last several months, she says his room has been consistently filthy, with food and urine left to fester on the ground.

Her father, a member of O-Chi-Chak-Ko-Sipi First Nation and currently under the care of a guardian, is sometimes left in clothes soaked in his own urine, she says, and the mess is left for her to clean up.

"I don't even get to visit with my dad. I'm there to clean him his bottom, his room. I send him SkipTheDishes every other day, so I make sure he's eating that little extra while I'm not there because I work," Andrews said.

The daughter says it's hard on her that she can't do more for him because she works two jobs, has kids to take care of and doesn't have the space or time to care for Bone full time.

It's especially hard knowing all he's gone through as a residential school survivor.

"He's a residential kid, so he's been hurt on his way in. Now he's being hurt on his way out," Andrews said.

A Revera spokesperson said they can't speak to the specifics of this situation out of respect for the resident and for privacy reasons, but said the company is taking this issue "very seriously," and are working with the family to ensure the resident's care needs are supported.

The spokesperson said this isn't an issue across Maples.

Site of deadly COVID-19 outbreak

Maples Long Term Care Home, which is located in north Winnipeg on Mandalay Drive, was the site of one of Manitoba's largest COVID-19 outbreaks. During October 2020 and January 2021, 56 residents died.

An external review later found the care home had severe staff shortages and hadn't adequately prepared to have enough people to take care of so many ill seniors.

Seniors advocate Eddie Calisto-Tavares' father Manuel Calisto, who had dementia, was among those who died in the fall 2020 outbreak.

Eddie or her brothers visited him daily at the time. They each noticed there was a smell in the room and spills weren't being cleaned up, so they started cleaning while they visited, she said.

"One of the reasons we started doing that was because we noticed patterns," said Eddie.

Those patterns included seeing Maples staff cleaning his room with mops that "were more dirty than the floor … in water that was black," and not doing a thorough job, she said.

"I remember once just pausing and saying to the lady, 'Did you drain this water before you came to my dad's room?'" she said. "It was like a foreign concept, like, 'What are you talking about?' So we just didn't trust the cleaning."

Eddie said her family later found out that the cleaning staff at Maples weren't actually employed by Revera but were subcontractors.

She says she never saw serious issues around cleanliness in her father's room prior to his death, but she did with others.

"I did see pee that was like crusted around the toilet, not just in my dad's room but in other people's rooms. And the smell … those that needed extra attention were not getting it and this was prior to COVID. COVID was a disaster," Eddie said.

A spokesperson for the Winnipeg Regional Health Authority said in a statement that it's aware of the situation and is confident Revera is working with the family to resolve any concerns.

Health authority staff visit the home regularly and no concerns were noted during the most recent visit, the spokesperson added.

Until the problem is addressed, Andrews says she'll continue to clean her father's room and advocate for his treatment.

"Nobody on earth should live like this."