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It
started with a tip. Elderly residents of Ontario nursing homes were
being routinely neglected and abused in the facilities that were
supposed to care for them in their final years.
In interviews, elderly advocates, families and nursing home workers
repeatedly told of terrible living conditions, physical neglect
and painful premature deaths. The stories were tragic but the families
were not prepared to go on the record with their experiences, fearing
a backlash from the homes where their parents lived.
But the problem, if true, was much bigger than a few anecdotal stories.
The best way to tackle it was through a series of Freedom of Information
requests, using the provincial government's own data to determine
the extent of the system's breakdown.
After discussing this with my colleague, investigative reporter
Kevin Donovan (who later became the project's editor and CAR analyst)
I made several requests of the ministry, which were eventually returned
with the price tag of about $6,000. We are currently appealing these
costs, based on the fact that the information highlighted a serious
public health and safety issue.
Fortunately, the freedom of information officer assigned to my request
was quite helpful. He pulled together a list of nursing home data
that was being kept by the ministry, and let me know the different
fields of information each database held.
I decided to go after two different sources of information. The
first was a complaints database. It gave details of complaints that
were filed by families with the ministry, the name of the home,
along with the dates that the complaint was filed and investigated.
The second was a series of abuse reports, filed by the nursing homes.
These gave a detailed account of the type of abuse, often at the
hands of other residents, along with the home's response.
It took nine months for the requests to come in. It took many more
weeks before the information could be built into databases.
While waiting for the FOI requests to come in, I built a third database
using more than 400 nursing home inspection reports obtained from
a source.
It took over six weeks to create this database.
When all three databases were ready, they held more than 20,000
records. Kevin developed a way to rate the homes using the three
streams of data.
Each stream of data were put first into Excel, then imported into
Access so Donovan could analyze the information and compare it to
the other streams of data. Then the data were analyzed by home,
by ministry region, and by type of problem.
This led to the conclusions in the stories: that seniors in as many
as four out of five Ontario nursing homes were living in neglect.
Using the conclusions of the data, we were then able to focus on
key issues such as neglect, abuse, and the homes that typically
had the most problems. One large chain, Central Park Lodges, was
shown to have serious problems.
The complaints database gave another invaluable piece of information.
Buried within the 7,500 complaints was one line "Resident hospitalized
for an ulcer - police investigated."
This led to the story of Natalie Babineau, 93, who died from an
untreated, gangrenous bedsore in a Central Park Lodge home. Natalie's
story ran as a three-day narrative leading into the series.
We decided early on that we would give all of the homes and associations
representing the homes ample time to respond to the conclusions.
Central Park Lodge, which faced a fair bit of scrutiny. We were
very straight with the CPL about what the stories would say. Central
Park, and all other homes mentioned, were presented with the findings
before the series ran. Some admitted problems and said they would
be corrected. Central Park repeatedly stated that it was trying
to its best to deliver quality care, but did admit to a few issues
it was trying to correct.
Kevin and I presented the findings to the ministry and the long-term
care association that represents the mostly for-profit homes. We
gave them time to think about the conclusions and to respond.
The meetings actually resulted in lengthy interviews in which admissions
were made which actually strengthened the story.
The stories were published over a period of 11 days last December.
The day after the publication of the main news story, Shocking neglect
of elderly, new Ontario health minister George Smitherman said he
would lead a revolution in nursing-home care.
The following month, he announced surprised annual inspections of
nursing Homes, a flaw pointed out in The Star series. And in early
May, Smitherman announced a series of changes brought on by the
series: $191 million a year to pay for 2,000 more staff; ensuring
that residents get two baths a week instead of one; and giving residents
access to a full-time nurse. As well, Smitherman announced a package
of significant legislative reform, to be debated at Queens Park
this fall, which he said will create rigorous enforcement standards
for nursing homes. |
