Supportive housing operator sued after man with dementia walks away

The Public Guardian and Trustee of Manitoba is suing a health services company after a man with dementia under its care allegedly wandered away from an apartment it operates for vulnerable people and was later found face down in a puddle — unresponsive, hypothermic and severely injured.

The public trustee — a provincial government agency that, among other duties, makes financial and personal care decisions for vulnerable adults who cannot do so themselves — filed the lawsuit against Cambridge Health Inc. and a related numbered company in the Court of King’s Bench earlier this month.

The agency did so on behalf of a now-38-year-old man, who has been under its care since 2018, as a result of his frontotemporal dementia. The disease often starts in mid-life, rather than old age, as is the case with most other forms of dementia.

The lawsuit alleges the man, who resided at a Henderson Highway apartment complex where Cambridge Health operated a supportive residence for people with complex behavioural health issues, was in a common area of the home at about 4:30 p.m. on April 3 last year.

The man, who the Free Press is not naming due to his vulnerability, was left unsupervised and walked out of the building, the court filing claims.

He wasn’t found until 7 a.m. the next day, nearly 10 kilometres away from the Cambridge home, near an apartment on Madeline Street in Transcona, the lawsuit alleges.

“(The man) was found in a nonresponsive condition, face down in a puddle of water,” reads the statement of claim. “His core body temperature was approximately 24 C.”

The man was rushed to St. Boniface Hospital, where he was resuscitated and admitted to the intensive care unit, the lawsuit says. He was diagnosed with an acute kidney injury and rhabdomyolysis, a life-threatening condition in which damaged muscle breaks downs, the claim alleges.

He also had blood pooling in the area between his lungs and chest wall, and in the retroperitoneal space, which is the area behind the abdominal cavity where the kidneys, other major organs and aorta are located. His left leg has remained weak.

The man remained at St. Boniface Hospital for 49 days, then was transferred to the Health Sciences Centre for 15 days before he was moved to transitional care at the Misericordia Health Centre for another 11 days, the court filing says.

The lawsuit alleges the man’s injuries were caused or contributed to by the negligence of Cambridge Health’s employees, including by allowing him to be unsupervised and creating the conditions to allow him to leave the facility unaccompanied.

Further, it alleges, the defendants were directly negligent by failing to have policies in place for caring for people with dementia, portraying themselves out as having the resources to care for dementia patients when they did not and failing to adequately inform and train employees, among other claims.

The defendants and their staff owed the man a duty to take reasonable care for his safety and to protect him from foreseeable risks of harm, it says.

Cambridge Health held itself out as delivering evidence-based support in a “safe and structured environment” with trained health-care personnel, the document says, adding the man relied on the services and supervision meant to be provided by the defendants.

Staff at the Cambridge home knew or ought to have known the man had dementia and was not to leave the home without a staff member or a designated member of his family, the claim says.

Further, staff knew or should have known the man tended to try to leave the facility unaccompanied and that he would vulnerable and in danger if he did so. His suite at the facility was required to be locked and when he was in common areas, and staff were expected to supervise him, the court filing claims.

As a result of Cambridge’s negligence, the lawsuit alleges, the public trustee has incurred expenses on rehabilitative treatments for the man.

The provincial Health Department was also required to pay for his hospital stays and medical care. The lawsuit seeks to recover that money.

It also seeks general and special damages as well as an in-trust award to the man’s mother for extraordinary care she provided.

Cambridge Health has yet to file a statement of defence.

The lawyer who filed the claim on behalf of the public trustee, Martin Pollock, declined to comment.

erik.pindera@freepress.mb.ca