Daughter of Wettlaufer's last victim unconvinced inquiry will result in changes to system
Susan Horvath says she holds many people accountable for her father's death, including the coroner
The daughter of serial killer Elizabeth Wettlaufer's last victim says she's not confident the public inquiry into how the nurse's crimes went undetected will lead to any improvements in long-term health care.
"There's not a lot of transparency in the nursing homes, for starters," said Susan Horvath, whose father, Arpad Horvath, was killed in August of 2014.
Wettlaufer was convicted of murdering eight elderly patients in her care. Her crimes went undetected for a decade.
I wish I could bring him back from the grave and apologize.- Susan Horvath
Chief among Horwath's concerns are how tight budgets at nursing homes affect care — and can lead to problematic employees like Wettlaufer being kept on.
"They don't want to hire too many people," she said.
The inquiry has already heard that Wettlaufer was called the 'angel of death' by a colleague and may have been on a "do not hire" list beginning early in her career.
Horvath told The Current's guest host Ioanna Roumeliotis that she's had no closure since her father's death, and has lost faith in the long-term health care system.
"It just very sad that human lives that go into nursing homes want care, they put their faith on the line, they put their money on the line, and at the end of the day, we have politics where budgets are tight and staffing is very short because there's money to be saved," Horvath said. "For-profit nursing homes are businesses, they are corporations."
Long Term Care Association responds
But Candace Chartier, the CEO of the Ontario Long Term Care Association, argues that it's not an issue of for-profit versus non-profit long-term care homes.
"That is the farthest thing from here," she said.
"As the association who represents every type of long-term care home, you can't make money off of the way we're funded with the nursing envelope and that's where your nursing staff comes out of," said Chartier.
Chartier also spoke to the staffing crunch described by Horvath, telling Roumeliotis that long-term care facilities are mandated to have an RN nurse in the building for 24 hours, 7 days a week.
Increasing that mandate to multiple nurses is not realistic due to a staffing shortage, she said.
"We do need to readdress how we're staffed and we need to have the flexibility as operators to be able to staff the home accordingly," said Chartier.
Listen to the full discussion near the top of this page.
This segment was produced by The Current's Julie Crysler and Richard Raycraft.