Province investigating couple’s ’tragic, unacceptable’ home-care failure

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This article was published 22/02/2023 (928 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Manitoba health officials have launched an investigation into a Winnipeg couple’s traumatic experience with promised — but never delivered — home care services.

“It’s tragic and I think it’s unacceptable,” Seniors Minister Scott Johnston said Wednesday about the situation Katherine Ellis and her husband Eric De Schepper were forced to endure.

Ellis, 62, died at home Saturday from pancreatic cancer. She was released from hospital five weeks ago with an assurance of home care to look after her and give her husband some respite.

It never materialized, and a frustrated and angry De Schepper went to the media last week, leading to a meeting Friday with Winnipeg Regional Health Authority officials, who had a hospital bed delivered that day and scheduled the first home care visit Tuesday.

De Schepper told the worker who showed up Tuesday — as he informed the WRHA Sunday — their services were no longer needed.

“There is an investigation that’s taking place as we speak to determine where the system fell down and again certainly that’s a situation that no one condones, including our government,” Johnston said.

De Schepper said the battle to get the promised help took time away from what he had left with Ellis. And he said not getting any assistance reduced her quality of life in her last weeks.

He has filed a complaint with the provincial Ombudsman.

“It seems you don’t get anything until you either make a large stink about it or keep nagging,” he said. “Nobody who is dying should have to go through the hoops. I will not let this drop.

“I will keep advocating, no longer now with Kathy, but for everyone in Manitoba now. This is just too big to let it go.”

De Schepper said he has sent emails to Premier Heather Stefanson and Health Minister Audrey Gordon, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and federal Health Minister Jean-Yves Duclos.

Tara-Lee Procter, regional lead for WRHA Health Services — Community and Continuing Care, offered condolences to Ellis’s family in a statement issued Wednesday.

“I will be reaching out to speak to Mr. De Schepper directly for the opportunity to listen and to offer our condolences and apologies,” Procter said.

“The WRHA Home Care Program provides an incredibly valuable service to our community with care delivered by committed and compassionate professionals. This situation nevertheless highlights that we need — and must — do better. I have asked today for a full review of the circumstances of this situation, along with our scheduling and management processes so that we prevent similar situations from happening in the future.”

The WRHA said earlier this week it is having trouble finding enough staff to fill positions with home care.

CUPE Local 204 president Debbie Boissonneault, which represents home care workers, said what Ellis and De Schepper went through was terrible, but her members see problems with home care all the time.

“I can’t believe this government just pushes people out of hospital without home care being set up,” Boissonneault said.

“They need someone at home to help them. You can’t expect this gentleman to be able to get her up on a commode. Being tidied up is something that could make people feel better.”

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Boissonneault said government efforts to help the health-care system by offering more money to nurses, is backfiring with her union’s members who want to know why they aren’t being included in the incentive program.

“Health-care aides are doing more than what they used to at the bedside, but they don’t get any extra incentive,” she said.

“They’re saying they can get more by going to Amazon. People are leaving the health-care profession.”

— With files from Danielle Da Silva

kevin.rollason@freepress.mb.ca

Kevin Rollason
Reporter

Kevin Rollason is a general assignment reporter at the Free Press. He graduated from Western University with a Masters of Journalism in 1985 and worked at the Winnipeg Sun until 1988, when he joined the Free Press. He has served as the Free Press’s city hall and law courts reporter and has won several awards, including a National Newspaper Award. Read more about Kevin.

Every piece of reporting Kevin produces is reviewed by an editing team before it is posted online or published in print — part of the Free Press‘s tradition, since 1872, of producing reliable independent journalism. Read more about Free Press’s history and mandate, and learn how our newsroom operates.