Manitoba to replace vulnerable persons office after audit finds abuse in care homes

A report on questionable findings in care home abuse cases by the Protection for Persons in Care Office in Manitoba has led the province to dissolve the agency and hire a lawyer.

Some residents in Manitoba personal care homes have been assaulted, threatened and injured by staff, yet a government oversight body deemed them to be unfounded cases of abuse, the province’s auditor general said Wednesday.

“I am deeply concerned by our findings and recognize the painful experiences the victims and families went through,” Tyson Shtykalo wrote in his 41-page report on the Protection for Persons in Care Office, a section of the health department charged with investigating abuse complaints.

In one case, the report said, a health-care aide at a personal care home kicked a resident in the shin and the wound continued to bleed after being cleansed. The office did not deem it a case of abuse as the person did not remember it happening and recovered fully.

In another case, the report said, a health-care aide hit someone with severe dementia in the face with the remote control for a transfer lift. The health-care aide then lowered the transfer lift onto the resident’s abdomen. They sustained injuries to their face, as well as bruising and swelling on their abdomen and shoulders.

The police were called and assault charges were laid against the health-care aide, the report said, and an investigator with the office deemed it a case of abuse. But a more senior director made the investigator change their finding to “unfounded,” the report said.

Manitoba Justice Minister Kelvin Goertzen said the findings were disturbing.

“What the report revealed, specifically as it relates to abuse of (the) elderly, is sickening and repulsive,” said Goertzen, who is also the house leader for the governing Progressive Conservatives.

Goertzen said the province will respond by eliminating the office and replacing it with an independent body that will report directly to the legislature instead of a government department. The new body is also to face questions regularly at legislature committee hearings that are open to the public, he added.