N.L. minister defends care homes after report cites deaths, assaults, feces on walls

John Haggie, Newfoundland and Labrador minister of health and community services. responds to a reporter's questions at a press conference during the Conference of Provincial-Territorial Ministers of Health in Winnipeg on June 28, 2018. THE CANADIAN PRESS/John Woods

ST. JOHN'S — Newfoundland and Labrador’s acting minister of health says he would have no qualms about putting a family member in a personal care home despite an auditor’s report that listed assaults and feces-smeared walls among complaints from facility residents.

John Haggie said Friday that he did not want to diminish the seriousness of some of the auditor general’s findings in the report released this week.

However, the minister told reporters that since the report came out he’s received comments from personal care home residents and their families, “particularly in my own district, saying, ‘This isn’t our story at all. We feel comfortable here. These are our homes, and we feel well looked after.”’

The report from Denise Hanrahan’s office said one resident died of an overdose after receiving multiple medications intended for another resident. Another didn’t return from a walk and was found dead later that day.

Noted infractions from monitoring reports included residents complaining of abuse by staff -- including sexual abuse -- and a room that was covered in “a large amount” of feces. At another facility, residents said they were hungry and cold.

Hanrahan’s team found three of the 65 employees at the homes they examined had negative results on their certificates of conduct from police, including assault charges.

The audit covered more than two years from April 2022 to last September, and looked at privately owned personal care facilities housing seniors and other adults, most of which were for-profit enterprises.

Newfoundland and Labrador is home to the country’s most rapidly aging population -- the latest census numbers show about one-quarter of the province’s 530,000 residents were 65 or older in 2021.

More than 4,400 people were living in personal care homes during Hanrahan’s audit.

Haggie agreed the serious incidents were unacceptable and he said they were reported when they occurred to health officials, who responded “promptly and appropriately.” His department had already been working on some of the improvements recommended in the report when it was published.

In particular, the health authority had already updated some of its standards for personal care homes, but those updates hadn’t been posted online, he said.

Allegations by residents of assault and sexual abuse would be flagged to the provincial health authority, which would then notify police if warranted. Haggie said though he was not aware of any present police investigations, “there has been law enforcement involvement in the past.”

The Opposition Progressive Conservatives have called for a police investigation, particularly into the reported accidental overdose death.

Const. James Cadigan with the Royal Newfoundland Constabulary said there are processes in place to determine whether criminal activity was involved in any unusual death. Cadigan encouraged anyone who feels they or their loved one has been assaulted or

The audit said 91 residents at the 35 homes examined had been effectively evicted by being dropped off at a local hospital emergency department and not accepted back by the care home -- a practice that the audit said was known to health officials.

Haggie said discussions are ongoing about how to relieve pressures on emergency departments from care facilities.

“It’s a nuanced issue, because there are a variety of reasons why a person might go to the emergency department and not, at that moment, go back to the personal care home,” he said.

He dismissed suggestions that the province move away from using for-profit entities to care for seniors, as Saskatchewan did in 2022.

“We have had extremely good relations over the years between personal care home private operators and the residents,” he said, adding, “I think what works in Saskatchewan may not work in Newfoundland and Labrador.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published April 4, 2025.