Union demands investigation after staff at Pickering LTC left without heat for nearly a week
Published December 23, 2024 at 2:36 pm
The union representing staff at a long-term care facility with the worst pandemic death record in Ontario is demanding the Ministry of Labour investigate after portions of Orchard Villa LTC in Pickering were left without heat for nearly a week.
SEIU Healthcare, the largest long-term care union in Ontario, delivered large space heaters to bring relief to Orchard Villa kitchen staff who had been left in “freezing conditions” by facility owner Southbridge when the corporation “failed to address an ongoing outage of the heating system.”
“The heat went out at the end of last week and we weren’t told about it,” said SEIU Director of Communications Corey Johnson. “They had one space heater and that’s a joke.”
Staff were left to prepare meals in winter jackets and the personal-sized heater provided by management was “completely ineffective” in raising temperatures in the industrial sized kitchen, he added.
After initial complaints were raised by staff, the union took it upon themselves to deliver large space heaters to the nursing home on Sunday as temperatures dropped well below freezing.
In a letter sent to the Southbridge CEO Monday, SEIU Healthcare is demanding accountability for leaving workers and seniors in freezing conditions for a period of at least five days.
“Failure to properly act in the face of -20 degree temperatures is cruelty to workers. It’s inhumane and beyond corporate mismanagement,” declared SEIU Healthcare President Tyler Downey. “It’s the job of the employer to protect workers. We demand no less.”
The freezing conditions extended beyond the kitchen and into the dining hall of the long-term care home.
SEIU Healthcare is calling on the Ministry of Labour to inspect the failures of the nursing home where 85 patients died due to mismanagement during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Orchard Villa saw some of the worst pandemic conditions among Ontario LTC facilities, losing 37 per cent of its 235 residents over the pandemic, more than seven times the provincial average.
More than 70 Orchard Villa residents died directly of COVID-19, but still others were lost to negligence, dehydration and starvation. In one case a resident choked to death because staff fed them improperly. Across the board Southbridge, which operates Orchard Villa and 37 other LTC facilities in Ontario, lost nine per cent of its residents, the highest rate of any for-profit chain.
Though the provincial government promised an “iron ring” around LTC early in the pandemic, the state of Orchard Villa and four other homes across Ontario got so bad the Canadian Armed Forces and the Red Cross were called in to help.
The CAF later released a scathing report about the homes finding cockroach infestations, food left out to rot, residents left for extended periods in soiled diapers, unaddressed serious injuries like a broken hip and unsafe medication distribution.
Despite the “stories of horror” from families of Orchard Villa, the facility remains open and operational and Southbridge later requested a 30-year license extension and a 15-storey addition that would house more than 320 more beds at the facility.
This prompted significant public outcry from the families who lost loved ones at Orchard Villa, including protests at Queen’s Park and lobbying at Pickering City Council. Ultimately, Pickering voted to deny Southbridge’s proposal, but the Ontario government issued the Minister’s Zone Order anyway, prompting a court challenge.
With files from Liam McConnell
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