Shocking Revelations: CHSLD Herron Long-Term Care Investigation Released

Thirty-eight dead in 10 days, employees who deserted the long-term care home at the first detected COVID-19 case, vulnerable elders abandoned to a grim fate: This has been the ongoing breaking news story of the CHSLD Herron in Dorval.

An investigation report, recently released to the public, was commissioned by the government of Quebec to shed light on the CHSLD Herron COVID-19 crisis. The findings are shocking.

Long-Term Care Homes Investigated in Quebec and Ontario

The investigation was released after a host of long-term care COVID-19 class action lawsuits were launched against Canada’s care facilities, one of them, against the infamous CHSLD Herron.

Barbara Schneider, who led the CHSLD Herron class action, reported that her mother died of COVID-19 while at the care facility, after the owners of the home abandoned staff and residents without proper equipment or resources to deal with the spreading virus.

Following similar reports of neglect and mistreatment in Ontario care homes during the coronavirus pandemic, the Ontario government established an independent Long-Term Care COVID-19 Commission, to investigate how COVID-19 spread within the province’s long-term care homes.

Shocking CHSLD Herron Report Findings

Sylvain Gagnon, the investigator in charge of the CHSLD Herron report, reveals that it was on the advice of the Info-Santé 811 service that dozens of the facility’s workers placed themselves in quarantine, as of March 26, leaving the care facility’s elderly to fend for themselves.

At that time, COVID-19 directives were not yet clear, the investigator recalls: “the ambiguity of the situation will have led, in this case, to the disorderly withdrawal of several employees.”

The report also reveals that on March 29, only three CHSLD staff members remained at the Herron facility to take care of 133 residents.

However, not all CHSLD Herron employees had deserted their elders, and the investigator pays tribute to them in the report. The investigation makes note of a doctor who even got her husband and children to help care for the abandoned residents, including feeding and changing the care facility’s residents.

CHSLD Herron Investigation Reports “lack of commitment to our elderly”

The investigation reports that the state of the premises showed clear signs of neglect, such as:

• Nasty odour of urine and feces
• Sticky floors
• Meals served in disposable Styrofoam dishes
• Cold food
• Residents soiled in their feces
• Many residents thirsty, dehydrated, with dry skin and lips

Like many reports of Canada’s armed forces and other witnesses of long-term care facility neglect, the CHSLD Herron investigation is difficult to stomach.

“Many were soiled,” explains the report, “and the beds were dirty and the dark circles suggested it was days old. When the incontinence underwear were changed, some residents had burnt skin […]. The same is true of feet, nails and eyes. Many residents did not have soap.”

The CHSLD Herron investigation continues that there is a resounding “lack of commitment to our elderly,” as well as a myopia or even a blindness “to not having grasped the societal challenge of our aging population.”

Quebec Health Authorities to Blame?

According to the investigation, certain decisions made by Quebec health authorities in previous years could be partially to blame for the COVID-19 long-term care catastrophe.

Although the CHSLD Herron report notes that none foresaw that the COVID-19 pandemic would strike with such rigour, Sylvain Gagnon highlights that “everyone agrees that such an eventuality was lying in wait for the world, that sooner or later it could become real, just as a second wave of the current pandemic must now be envisaged.”

The report notes that Quebec’s health authorities are not the sole accuseds’ amid the province’s long-term care COVID-19 devastation. Indeed, CHSLD Herron’s managers are also responsible, because they failed to plan ahead for an epidemic. According to the report, this failure led to “the sad fate of their residents.”

While the intentions of the managers of the CHSLD Herron were not malicious, notes the investigative report, they did not, however, demonstrate that they had full control over their area of responsibility. The investigation further comments that the CHSLD Herron managers also lacked a clear understanding of the many demands involved in meeting the needs of a “clientele that is infinitely vulnerable and completely dependent” on the care it receives.

The report therefore concludes that the authorities at CHSLD Herron showed organizational negligence.

The investigation recommends that government and care facilities invest in human resources. The investigator writes that the use of employment agencies within the long-term care network must be “progressively reduced and ultimately eliminated.”

Do you have a loved one who was affected by COVID-19 in a long-term care home? What do you think about Quebec’s CHSLD Herron report? Share your story with us in the comments below!

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