World News – CA – Three more deaths at Maples Personal Care Home spark outrage

Members of the Winnipeg Fire Paramedic Service enter the Maples personal care home last Sunday The province announced the deaths of three other residents on Saturday

A new rapid response team will now be on site 24 hours a day to provide medical care to residents of the Maples personal care home starting Saturday night, a day after paramedics rushed home nurses affected by COVID-19 and a report of distressing scenes have surfaced on social media

The province has no plans to call up the military or take over the management of the facility, even as the death toll at the facility has risen to 22, including eight during the previous 48 hours, and that family members have expressed concerns the staff was causing inadequate care for residents

There are currently 169 residents in the 200-bed facility Since the outbreak began, at least 106 residents and 43 staff have tested positive for COVID-19 Some of them are now considered recovered and, in the case of staff, returned to work

This ongoing crisis appears to have reached a breaking point on Friday evening, when paramedics were called to assess and treat around ten residents. Two were found dead when paramedics arrived, confirmed Gina Trinidad, chief WRHA long-term care operations, in a hastily-organized press conference on Saturday night

Both residents were previously receiving end-of-life care, one of them for COVID-19 In total, three more Manitobans died from facility-linked COVID-19 on Friday, including a man in his 60s , a woman in her sixties and a woman in her 80s Twenty-two people have now died from the outbreak, Trinidad said

That same night, three other residents were rushed to hospital, one in critical condition, the Winnipeg Fire Paramedic confirmed The remaining residents were treated on site, including with IV fluids for dehydration

Hours later, Saturday morning, the public was alerted to the situation when a post surfaced on social media site Reddit and quickly went viral The post’s author identified himself as a paramedic Winnipeg paramedic; the Free Press communicated well with the writer, who did not want to reveal his identity fearing professional repercussions

The post describes how paramedics found a ‘nightmare’ situation in Maples, with overworked staff and dehydrated or starving residents. time and that rigidity and lividity had already settled in the bodies

As public outrage mounted, Manitoba Health Minister Cameron Friesen tweeted he was « devastated » to learn of the situation at the nursing home and had just left a  » urgent meeting ”in which he led executives with WRHA and Revera, the private company that runs Maples, to provide answers to Manitobans the same day

Two residents of the Maples Personal Care Home were found dead when paramedics arrived on Friday, WRHA long-term care chief operating officer Gina Trinidad confirmed at a conference hurriedly organized press on Saturday evening

Trinidad, who was on site in Maples while paramedics were there, confirmed paramedics provided residents with intravenous therapy, but denied helping with feeding when asked specifically if the rigor report mortis had put in the bodies was correct, she replied that the deceased patients had been monitored

« End-of-life care residents, which allegedly included the resident couple (who died Friday) evening, were monitored by Maples staff, nurses, hourly, » Trinidad said

In response to Friday night’s incident, Trinidad said, the province was building a rapid response team that would be on site 24/7 to provide medical follow-up and treatment. team, which could also be deployed to other sites as needed, will include paramedics, respiratory therapist and other health professionals

On staffing, Jason Chester, Revera’s vice president of long-term care operations for Western Canada, said the facility has a full staff of seven nurses and 13 of his 15 regular orderlies during the Friday night shift when paramedics were called in. He had 100% of his workforce assigned to the night shift, he said

According to Chester, the facility was able to maintain the provincial minimum of 36 hours of care per resident

Eddie Calisto-Tavares, who is cleared into the facility to care for his frail 88-year-old father with COVID-19, said the facility appeared to remain understaffed On Thursday night, Calisto-Tavares waited over 45 minutes for help changing his father’s soiled diapers; no one came until she threatened to call 911

As of Friday night, she also didn’t see any orderlies working in her father’s section, only a single nurse rushed to cope with the workload. Maples staff « really care about the residents, « she said, but in her opinion there are just not enough. She sometimes hears residents with dementia crying for long periods of time

« We always have more security guards than medical professionals, » Calisto-Tavares said on Friday, noting that she had seen the establishment’s staff increase in recent days, including employees generals hired to help in non-health areas care tasks such as cleaning or collecting items for nurses

In response to a question about what Calisto-Tavares had seen, Chester said that the level of acute needs of sick residents and the fact that they are confined to their rooms can make staff appear less presentThey are « learning as they go » with regards to pandemic staffing, he said, and there is « an opportunity to look at that a bit more in light of the staffing needs for that particular issue »

According to Jason Chester, Revera’s vice president of long-term care operations for Western Canada, Maples Personal Care Home had 100% of its staff assigned during their Friday night shift

According to Chester,

« It has become a little more difficult for staff to reach everyone, and we have a lot more people in need of care because of the virus, » he said.

“What we didn’t anticipate, or what we definitely needed to plan better is the impact it would have on our staff in personal care homes,” Trinidad said. “This makes it very difficult when you already have basic staff in a personal care home and one day you have 16 staff who need to self-isolate or are sick

« This planning, I’ll be the first to say, certainly could have been improved in terms of preparing our staff resources to handle this »

Earlier this week, Revera Living called on the Red Cross to provide assistance to staff at Maples and Parkview Place, the two local establishments with the most severe outbreaks Red Cross assistants would be deployed to help with non-medical tasks, including assistance with meals and providing companionship to residents

On Thursday, the Red Cross confirmed that it has started its assessments Trinidad said the WRHA has been working with the Red Cross and that their team will prioritize the Maples facility and expect to be there on Friday Nov 13

In a statement on Saturday, Manitoba NDP Leader Wab Kinew called reports of the incident « shocking » and « deeply concerning » He called on the province to appeal to « no any resource, « including the military Earlier in the pandemic, the military had been deployed to assist in overwhelmed nursing homes in Ontario and Quebec

“The Pallister government must step in today to make sure seniors and residents get the care they need,” Kinew said “Lives are at stake and there is no reason to delay « 

The Manitoba Liberal Party also released a statement on Saturday, calling for an immediate provincial takeover of the Maples and Parkview Place facilities, rapid testing of all residents and a plan to relocate residents COVID-19 negatives to another staff-supported site

« It’s heartbreaking for families and worse yet, it was preventable, » said Liberal health critic Dr Jon Gerrard « We need immediate action and immediate resources to solve this problem « 

Updated Saturday, November 7, 2020 at 9:18 p.m. CST: updates to include remarks from the press conference held on Saturday afternoon

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Nursing Home, Winnipeg, The Maples, Revera Maples Long Term Care Home, Healthcare