Lawsuit Claims $600M In Damages Against Ontario Long-Term Care Homes
Innis Ingram says that at one point during the COVID-19 pandemic, his mother, a resident of a Mississauga, Ont., long-term care home, wasn’t bathed for six weeks.
His 78-year-old mom, Kathryn Robertson, lives at Camilla Care Community long-term care home.
Her meals and medication were often delivered late. Her diet’s quality was also a concern, Ingram said. One day, Kathryn’s lunch was a cold, uncooked hot dog.
Ingram is one of the plaintiffs in a recently launched proposed $600 million class action lawsuit against almost 100 Ontario long-term care homes, which alleges they were negligent in their response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Ingram made headlines after he chained himself to a tree outside Camilla Care in the spring. He was demanding to speak to an inspector and someone from the management team at Trillium Health Partners, which assumed temporary management of Camilla Care at the end of May.
The home has seen 68 resident deaths during the pandemic. Kathryn didn’t contract COVID-19, but is high-risk because she has pulmonary fibrosis.
“Somehow she managed to avoid it, but the quality of care that she’s received through the pandemic has just been atrocious,” Ingram told HuffPost Canada.
A spokesperson for Sienna Senior Living, which owns Camilla Care, declined to comment when asked about Ingram’s allegations.
Ingram said he feels an obligation to represent the hundreds of families who have reached out to him over the course of the pandemic. He said he’s heard shared concerns about loved ones in long-term care experiencing weight loss, having bed sores for weeks and homes being short-staffed.
‘Appalling’ events during pandemic: lawyer
“We’re seeing right across the board, across all 96 homes [in the lawsuit], virtually repeated stories and descriptions of extreme overcrowding [and] homes that were under-resourced where you had lack of staff,” Joel Rochon, co-lead counsel on the class action and managing partner at Rochon Genova...
