The President and CEO of the Winnipeg Regional Health Authority, Vickie Kaminski said on Monday, November 9, 2020, that the staffing levels reported by Revera for the Maples personal care home on Friday, Nov 6 was not accurate.
According to Kaminski only seven of the 19 Health Care Aids (HCA) scheduled to work were on shift after 7:30 pm on Friday evening.
Winnipeg Fire Paramedic Service paramedics were called to the PCH around 7:10 pm Friday. Crews assessed a total of 12 residents of which three were transported to the hospital. Two of the residents who were already being treated for end of life issues passed away between the time paramedics were called in and when they arrived. The remaining residents were treated within Maples PCH.
The incident at Maples PCH became public after a person took to social media claiming to be one of the paramedics who responded to the call for service. In the post they claimed the patients who had passed away had been dead for hours as rigidity and lividity had already set in. Some of the patients assessed where just hungry and didn’t have the ability to feed themselves. The poster said that some residents were dehydrated and were given IV fluids.
WFPS Chief John Lane confirmed that the content of the social media post accurately represented what had been told to him by the paramedic district chief who had been on site.
Paramedics transported five more patients from Maples personal care home between Saturday night and Monday morning.
A Rapid Response Team was stationed within the facility during the overnight hours with Saturday and Sunday and are expected to be at the facility for much of the week.
At a media briefing on Saturday, Jason Chester, vice-president, long-term care operations for Western Canada, Revera said that the facility had 13 HCAs of 15 required for the shift as well as 7 nurses and 15 general labour staff.
After the union that represented workers at the home disputed the staffing levels claimed by Revera, Kaminski said she ask for more details from the company and learned that 12 of the 19 HCAs were off after eight called in sick and four reported they were self-isolating due to COVID-19
Some day shift staff agreed to fill in for a few hours but by 7:30 pm they had left for the day.
Kaminski said that the WRHA will be following up with Revera and asking for clarification about what they knew and when they knew it. She said she will also be asking why the information that was provided to the WRHA was less than accurate.
In response to the incident at Maples personal care home Kaminski said that the WRHA is in the process putting together a team of management professionals with clinical backgrounds. Effective tomorrow a member of the team will be onsite at Maples PCH daily going forward.
© News4.ca 2020
