Daughter pushes back on trespass notice at father's Ontario long-term care home

A long-term care home in Peterborough, Ont., served a woman whose father is a resident with a trespass notice after alleging she harassed staff, but she says it is in retaliation for reporting her concerns about the facility to Ontario's Ministry of Long-Term Care.

"I opened it and I saw the words 'notice of trespass,' and [it] said, you can't enter. And I think I only read the first few words and I just burst into tears," said Diane Tamblyn, whose father, John Bedborough, 87, moved into St. Joseph's at Fleming, a not-for-profit long-term care facility, in August 2021. "It's retaliatory, that's all it is."

The care home served Tamblyn with an official trespass notice on March 4, restricting her access to the facility between 9 a.m. and 6 p.m. each day, limiting her to two visits per day and preventing her from accessing other parts of the care home outside of her father's room. The notice said contravening the trespass order is punishable by a fine of $2,000.

Advocates for families who have loved ones in long-term care facilities say Tamblyn's experience is another example of how the Ontario government needs to deal with the use of trespass notices in such cases — an issue that was acknowledged a year ago in the provincial legislature with unanimous support but no real legal power.

In a written statement to CBC News, St. Joseph's at Fleming CEO Carolyn Rodd said she could not comment on the matter because the workplace harassment complaint process and investigation are ongoing.

"Diane has full access to her father and can visit him every day if she chooses," Rodd said.

Tamblyn said that the Ministry of Long-Term Care "puts up a poster that says, 'Are you concerned about care? Do you see abuse or neglect?' It says, 'Report it, it's the law.' So I report it, but then look what happens."

When her father initially moved into the home, Tamblyn said management was responsive to her concerns.

"I would mention them and they would either try to do something to make it better, but then it would slip back off the radar again," she said. Both Tamblyn and the home say they spoke many times over a period of months to discuss her concerns.

Tamblyn said she grew increasingly worried about her father's care when he continued to have falls. She was also concerned that staff were not being responsive when he rang the call bell. Her father has Parkinson's disease, heart disease and cancer.

"There were so many times my dad was waiting over an hour to get his call bell answered. Things like that were breaking my heart," she said.

"They [management] looked at me as some sort of a whistleblower, constantly pointing out their flaws," Tamblyn said. "There's no pleasure in being that person, constantly pointing out the errors that were taking place in the home. All it did was put a target on me, and at that point, the relationship just fell apart."

Tamblyn eventually filed her complaints with the ministry on Nov. 30, 2021, just as the Omicron wave of the coronavirus pandemic began its massive surge. That triggered an official investigation.

"We were very worried at the time because ... my husband and I would continually see the staff not wearing masks in the home, in my dad's room, in the dining areas, everywhere in the building," she said.