Anson Place turned down help from medical ‘SWAT team,’ province says – TheSpec.com

Premier Doug Ford criticized management at Anson Place Care Centre for turning down the provinces offer of help from a SWAT team of hospital workers while grappling with one of Ontarios deadliest COVID-19 outbreaks.

The Hagersville long-term care centre has seen 26 residents die in less than a month, with 44 residents and 31 staff members still fighting the disease. The cause of another recent death at the 101-bed facility is still under investigation.

Trish Nelson, communications director with Ontario Health West, said Anson Place executive director Lisa Roth wrote to the province on Friday declining the offer to have a COVID-19 SWAT team come in.

According to Nelson, Roth said management at Anson Place, a private facility owned by Rykka Care Centres, was comfortable that we are currently able to meet the care needs of our residents and do not require additional LHIN-funded services currently.

Nelson said Roth told the ministry that Anson Place would continue to monitor this closely and assess the care needs against our staffing compliment and reach out to the LHIN if additional services are required.

To date, Nelson said the ministry has received no requests from Anson Place for increased support or assistance.

Anyone who makes that judgment call, I wonder why they are even in charge over at that home, Ford said in response to a question about Anson Place at a press conference on Wednesday.

Sometimes pride gets in the way. Well to that person Id say, Swallow your pride and start asking for help.

When you have those many deaths and those many positive cases of COVID-19, why wouldnt you? We need to bring people in.

On Friday, the same day she is alleged to have refused the offer of the SWAT team, Roth put out a call for new staff to help with residents daily needs, such as meals, laundry services, exercise and personal hygiene.

In an email Wednesday evening, Roth claimed that her memo to the ministry on Friday referred only to the retirement floor at Anson Place and not the long-term care floor.

To be clear, at the moment we are able to meet the care needs of our retirement residence with our current staff, Roth said. We are however in need of additional staff in our long-term care residence. We are meeting the care needs of our residents, but additional staff would help us shore up our care and services in these challenging times.

Roth said Fridays call for new employees had to do with meeting the need in long-term care, adding that she updated Ontario Health West to that effect on Wednesday.

To date, 23 residents in long-term care have died, along with four from the retirement residence.

SEIU Healthcare president Sharleen Stewart said she was dismayed but not shocked by the news that Anson Place had rejected outside help.

Thats the kind of management thats going on at these places. I cant explain that, she said. That just solidifies our argument that this government has got to take over these homes.

Merrilee Fullerton, the minister in charge of long-term care, rejected the unions recent call for the government to take charge of three privately run care homes in crisis, including Anson Place.

Fullerton told reporters last week that the province does not run long-term care facilities.

Ford announced Wednesday that the province will formally ask the Public Health Agency of Canada and Canadian Forces to send medical personnel and other support staff into five priority homes to bolster staffing ranks.

The army has been similarly deployed in Quebec to help contain the pandemic at long-term care homes in that province.

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Ford didnt name the facilities included in the provinces request, but Stewart hopes Anson Place is on the list.

If thats the governments way of taking over and supplying support, then good, she said. But how longs it going to take, and why did it take him so long to ask for it?

Understaffed homes like Anson Place are in desperate need of reinforcements, Stewart added.

Absolutely, we need more staff, she said. But right now, because (the government) has waited so long to take care of this, people are afraid to go in these homes.

She said workers at Anson Place and elsewhere are pushed to the brink, logging extra hours to fill in for infected colleagues and struggling to cope with the emotional toll of managing the pandemic.

Theyre afraid, terrified, exhausted now. The majority of them have lost confidence in their employers and the government, Stewart said.

They keep going in there to protect the people they love, which are the residents. (But) the workload now is becoming unbearable. These people are going to collapse soon.

In a statement, Responsive Group Inc., the management company that oversees Rykka Care Centres, pledged to better support its employees working in long-term care.

It is difficult to hear that some of our staff feel that we have not done everything possible to protect them throughout this crisis. We need to do better, the statement read.

There have been no new COVID-19 cases at Anson Place since Saturday, when Roth reported the 71st resident to become infected.

Dr. Shanker Nesathurai, Haldimand-Norfolks chief medical officer of health, said on Monday that he expected to see more deaths at Anson Place as residents who were infected up to two weeks ago started to show symptoms of the respiratory disease.

But he cited the slowdown in new cases as a hopeful sign that containment measures put in place at the facility are working.

J.P. Antonaccis reporting is funded by the Canadian government through its Local Journalism Initiative. The funding allows him to report on stories about the regions of Haldimand and Norfolk.

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Anson Place turned down help from medical 'SWAT team,' province says - TheSpec.com