SEIU asks province to take control of Anson Place
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The company overseeing two beleaguered seniors homes in southern Ontario has been hit with a one-two punch.
The Ontario Nurses’ Association – the union representing 65,000 health-care workers – filed court injunctions against care homes operated by Rykka Care Centres LP on April 16.
These include the Anson Place Care Centre in Hagersville and Eatonville Care Centre in Etobicoke. Between them, the homes have registered nearly 50 deaths in recent weeks from the COVID-19 coronavirus.
Service Employee International Union (SEIU) Healthcare followed this up with a letter to the Ontario government calling on the province to take control of Anson Place and Eatonville for the duration of the pandemic outbreak.
In an interview on April 17, ONA president Vicki McKenna said the nurses’ union went to court because the complaints procedure through the Ministry of Labour takes too long.
ONA has asked the court to order Rykka Care Centres to immediately provide staff with any and all personal protective equipment needed to tend to the sick safely and without spreading COVID-19 to other seniors and the wider community. Items at issue include latex gloves, face masks, face shields, disposable gowns and the like.
ONA also wants an order forcing Rykka Care to segregate infected seniors from residents who have tested negative. ONA also doesn’t want staff tending to infected residents tending to residents who have tested negative and vice versa.
“If our members are safe, so are our residents,” McKenna said. “That’s Infection Control 101. They didn’t isolate them. They’ve dropped the ball on a number of procedures that should’ve taken place and now we’re way behind the eight-ball.”
ONA also names a third Rykka-managed facility in the injunction – the Hawthorne Place Care Centre of North York – which has more than 200 residents.
In her letter, Sharleen Stewart, president of SEIU Healthcare, said: “To date, 46 people have died that we are aware of but the actual number is likely higher.
“Our members working on the front line of these facilities have lost all confidence that everything that can be done is being done to keep people safe and protected. For that reason, we are asking the province to use your powers to put these facilities in trusteeship and have the government take over administrative control.”
Stewart notes that British Columbia and Quebec have exercised their emergency powers in this direction at homes where COVID-19 has struck with devastating impact.
Anson Place is located in Haldimand County, which is one-half of the Haldimand-Norfolk Health Unit’s jurisdiction.
In a recent conference call, Dr. Shanker Nesathurai, Haldimand and Norfolk’s medical officer of health, said staff at Anson Place was slow to recognize that an aggressive, dangerous pathogen had infiltrated the facility. Visitors came and went while infected residents and staff spread the virus for up to three weeks, the doctor said.
Responsive Group, of Toronto, is the management firm in charge of Rykka Care Centres. In a statement Friday, Responsive Group said front-line staff is already working closely with ministry and health-care experts to contain the pathogen.
“Each of our homes has been working very closely with their local public health units — hand in glove — to ensure we are doing everything we can to protect our residents and our staff,” Responsive Group said in a statement to Postmedia.
“Eatonville, Anson Place and Hawthorne are no exception. They have tremendous relationships with their public health units and have been following their very specific directions on what protective measures to put in place for residents and staff and when to implement those measures.
Responsive Group adds all staff have the personal protective equipment they need to follow the public health directives they’ve received since the viral outbreak began several weeks ago.
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