Herron officials were quick to blame COVID for deaths instead of poor care, nurse says
CBC
An auxiliary nurse who worked at the Herron nursing home at the height of the COVID-19 crisis painted a disturbing picture on Tuesday of a woefully understaffed facility where residents were left without enough food and water and it was unclear who was in charge.
The worker, whose name is under a publication ban, recounted troubling details of her experience in the first week of April 2020. She described the situation as "chaos."
She said neither the owner of the privately operated home, the Katasa Group, nor the West Island health authority, which had been aware of the crisis at the home since at least March 29, did enough to address the situation.
A total of 31 people had died at Herron by April 11.
"I really and truly thought that whoever was in charge, I had the impression that they were blaming the virus, because it would be easier to blame the virus than to acknowledge the hard truth that these people suffered malnourishment and dehydration," the witness said at the coroner's inquiry, which is examining the situation at Herron during the first wave.
"I felt it was a way to escape culpability."
One resident, left unchanged, had slipped and was found lying in his own excrement. Another, who suffered from Alzheimer's, was left for a day in the same room as his dead spouse, and he had to repeatedly be told she had died.
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