Families speak out about deadly COVID outbreak at Extendicare Kapuskasing

Family member calls for action in Kapuskasing Kapuskasing held a virtual town hall where families of Extendicare nursing home had a chance to speak out.

TIMMINS — Family members of those living at Extendicare Kapuskasing are speaking out about the level of care they're receiving while the home deals with its COVID-19 outbreak.

"He told them to leave and let him die."

Those are the word's Melissa Caron's grandfather told her parents after his brother and roommate died of COVID-19 at Extendicare Kapuskasing in January.

Caron's other grandfather also died after testing positive for COVID-19.

All the while, Caron's been shedding light on the level of care at the home, particularly for her grandmother, who contracted COVID and survived.

"My grandmother hadn't had a shower in three weeks[...]he had medication, sleeping meds given to her at 11 o'clock at night," said Caron.

"The workers are just simply exhausted, have contracted the viruses themselves. It impacts the care on the residents at the end of the day."

Caron says she doesn't blame the staff — but the lack of support from Extendicare and from government. She shared her family's tragic ordeal at a virtual town hall.

Among the other complaints voiced were the province refusing to request military help, not spending enough emergency funds — and the shortcomings of privatized long term care.

"You say that you need money to help pay your staff but you can afford to pay dividends to your shareholders while loved ones are dying? I think that is just horrible," said Algoma-Manitoulin-Kapuskasing MP, Carol Hughes.

The meeting also featured anonymous testimony from people impacted by COVID in the long term care system — something a northern MPP says signals a failure to prevent and slow the spread of COVID-19.

"It is sad that we have to create sites like this, so people can testify without being afraid of reprisal,” said Mushkegowuk-James Bay MPP Guy Bourgouin.

“We shouldn't have to do that when we are in crisis."

Bourgouin is encouraging more people to share their experiences, in hopes of sparking swift action.

For Caron, her family took her grandmother out of Extendicare to spare her mental health, but had to leave her grandfather inside due to his intensive needs.

They are advocating for more staff and more mental health supports at the home.

"Anything that we are able to do out of this will just mean that we didn't do this for nothing."

It's been an exhausting and emotional few weeks, Caron says, but at the very least she wants people to know what's really happening behind the walls of long term care in the era of COVID-19.