Families feel silenced after report into Maples Personal Care Home

WINNIPEG (CityNews) – In the aftermath of an investigation and report on the Maples Personal Care Home COVID-19 outbreak that saw 56 residents die, some families of those residents still feel silenced.

“You try and it’s like they don’t want to talk to you,” said Jean Giffen.

RELATED: Province will implement all 17 recommendations from Maples care home review

“I was trying to get through to them because I wanted to be part of the investigation. I never got to be,” Giffen added.

“They said they tried to send me a survey but the email bounced back–they had the wrong email. How come you have the right email now?”

Giffen says on the virtual call before the recommendations were released, she tried to ask a question but they cited technical difficulties. She says she also posed a question in the chat function and that was ignored.

“They allowed one family person to speak. And all they said was they really liked the maples before covid and still feel the same way. And that’s all they said. And they ended it after that.”

A Winnipeg man whose father died in Maples Personal Care Home says the report only adds to the nightmare of losing his father.

He’d like to see them acknowledge communication was an issue far before the pandemic started.

“I used to play a game called dial that number,” said Larry Baillie.

Baillie says he’d dial a bunch of different numbers to see who would pick up and if he got someone, it was usually a manager on a different floor who couldn’t give him the answers he needed.

He fears that if the WRHA and province don’t acknowledge issues he says existed prior to the pandemic, nothing will change.

“They talk a really good talk. They don’t walk the walk. And this report allows for the same things to happen,” he said.

The province says it can’t speak to the process of the investigation as it was done by an independent reviewer, but that it reached out to 94 families with the contact information provided by Maples to be on that virtual call before the recommendations were released.

The province acknowledged the technical difficulties that didn’t allow everyone to speak and said it gave families an email to send follow up questions to.

Revera, the owner of Maples, says the team is working with Manitoba Health and the WRHA to address and implement recommendations from the independent inquiry.

“Before the pandemic, the team at Maples made several attempts to encourage family members to join a Family Council, with very little interest expressed. At the Town Halls during the outbreak, some residents expressed an interest in doing virtual Family Councils. The Maples team is currently working on honouring that request and finding the appropriate virtual platform while still respecting the privacy of residents and family members,” reads in part a statement from Revera.

“Families continue to get weekly emails from the Executive Director providing information and updates and proposals for a virtual family council will be shared with them in the weekly updates.”

In the meantime, Baillie wants to see the WRHA take over the home or stipulate that shareholders can’t get more than 15 per cent of the profit.

“That way, hopefully, care will go up or money will go back into the healthcare piggy bank and be used for other services.”

Giffen wants a public inquiry with greater transparency. To this day, she says she doesn’t know what killed her mom.