{"id":46183,"date":"2015-04-02T18:56:56","date_gmt":"2015-04-02T10:56:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=46183"},"modified":"2015-04-02T18:57:20","modified_gmt":"2015-04-02T10:57:20","slug":"care-home-died-after-eating-laundry-detergent-pods-saskatchewan-ndp","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2015\/04\/02\/care-home-died-after-eating-laundry-detergent-pods-saskatchewan-ndp\/","title":{"rendered":"Carehome patient died after eating laundry detergent pods: Saskatchewan NDP"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Laundry<\/a>
Laundry detergent pods (Facebook photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

REGINA — Saskatchewan’s Opposition leader is calling for improvements to seniors care after he says a man at a Moose Jaw facility died from eating laundry detergent pods.<\/p>\n

NDP Leader Cam Broten raised the issue in the legislature Wednesday. Broten said the man wandered out of his room at Providence Place.<\/p>\n

“That is unbelievable,” Broten told reporters. “It’s so sad to think of a senior confused, not knowing what’s going on, and being left to wander to get into such a dangerous situation.”<\/p>\n

Bert Linklater, spokesman for the Five Hills Health Region, said the man’s death was investigated and the region made an action plan to prevent a similar situation in the future.<\/p>\n

“It’s a tragic event,” he said.<\/p>\n

“I’ll say this … there is no issue of neglect, no issue of the person being unsupervised or improperly supervised, none of those things are evident in this incident.”<\/p>\n

Linklater said the man was suffering from dementia.<\/p>\n

Health Minister Dustin Duncan said the death was listed as a critical incident.<\/p>\n

“It’s one of the few facilities that does have washer and dryer in the units for the residents if they want to do their own laundry,” he said.<\/p>\n

Broten said he was made aware of the incident by Eunice Blanchard, who worked as a care aide for 34 years before retiring last year from Providence Place.<\/p>\n

Blanchard said she believes conditions at the home have deteriorated in the last two years.<\/p>\n

“Those elderly people deserve way more than what they’re getting,” she said.<\/p>\n

“They have hardly any front-line staff to look after them and that’s who washes them, gets them up, feeds them, bathes them, turns them. It makes me sick.”<\/p>\n

Duncan said staffing levels have been improving.<\/p>\n

Broten said there is a “widespread crisis” in seniors care in Saskatchewan.<\/p>\n

On Monday, the NDP raised the concerns of care aide Peter Bowden, who works at Oliver Lodge in Saskatoon.<\/p>\n

Bowden has said residents are at risk of skin infections because they are left in soiled diapers and bedding for up to 10 hours.<\/p>\n

He said at times on his night shift he is left alone to look after 32 residents and more staff are required to provide better care.<\/p>\n

Ombudsman Mary McFadyen began an investigation in November following the death and alleged mistreatment of a senior at a Regina care home.<\/p>\n

Margaret Warholm lived at Santa Maria Senior Citizens Home until her death in October 2013.<\/p>\n

Medical records show Warholm lost almost 14 kilograms in a year and had compression fractures in her vertebrae. She also had a large bed sore on her back that her family believes could have been prevented.<\/p>\n

McFadyen said in January that her office had received about 35 complaints related to care in long-term care facilities since her investigation started.<\/p>\n

She said the complaints are about poor quality of care, low staff-to-resident ratios, a lack of accountability and poor communication.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

REGINA — Saskatchewan’s Opposition leader is calling for improvements to seniors care after he says a man at a Moose …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":46243,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1482,18,37],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-46183","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-breaking","category-news-ca","category-health","mauthors-clare-clancy","mauthors-the-canadian-press1"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46183","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=46183"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46183\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/46243"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46183"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=46183"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=46183"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}