Family desperate for answers after learning late dad, 92, allegedly abused at Oakview Place
Family told care home is aware of 3 incidents of alleged abuse related to their father
David Middleton was a good man. He loved his wife of 60-plus years, Louise, and their six children.
Growing up the family didn't have much, but they had enough.
Middleton, 92, worked tirelessly as a sheet metal worker, or "tin basher," as he called it, to put food on the table. He coached hockey and soccer and was a talented artist. He loved Forty Creek rye and a cold beer on a hot day.
Middleton spent his last years at Oakview Place, a personal care home in Winnipeg, where he moved after a stroke in early 2018.
His family says he deserved better in his final days. His eldest daughter wishes she could tell him that.
"To be able to give them a hug and say, I'm sorry this happened to you. He's not there anymore," Middleton's daughter, Dianna Klassen, said through tears.
Her late father is one of 15 Oakview Place residents who, it was revealed earlier this month, were allegedly abused by two aides at the care home.
On Father's Day, six months after his death, Middleton's children gathered at the cottage he built for them in Gull Lake to lay his ashes beside their mom's.
The next day, another daughter, Nancy Trauer, got a phone from a senior director at Extendicare, the company that owns Oakview Place.
"I was kind of taken aback about that. I thought, well, do you even know my dad has passed away anyway?" Trauer said from her St. James home.
Extendicare was calling to tell Trauer her father was among the residents who had allegedly been abused.
"He's been gone since January, so to be told this was happening prior to that and then continued even after, I guess that was one thing to be thankful for — that Dad had passed away and he wasn't suffering that abuse any longer," Trauer said.
Middleton's stroke left him blind in one eye, and he had difficulty hearing.
"The fact that they picked on such a vulnerable person, these people need to pay," Trauer said.
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In an email to CBC News, an Extendicare spokesperson the company appreciates "there are a lot of questions, and we want to be as transparent as we possibly can."
"However, the police have explicitly advised not to disclose further details while the investigation is underway. We understand this is frustrating, but we must respect their direction."
Two health-care aides have been placed on paid leave while the Winnipeg Regional Health Authority, the Winnipeg Police Service and the province investigate.
The spokesperson said Extendicare is co-operating with those investigations, and is focusing on "rebuilding trust with our residents, families and community at Oakview Place."
Whistleblowers may have witnessed abuse
Trauer says Extendicare told her they know of three incidents of abuse involving her father.
The sisters were told two people who were in supervisory positions at Oakview Place have either resigned or been dismissed.
A whistleblower had come forward to the care home about the alleged abuse in February, but nothing was done until another whistleblower went to the Winnipeg Regional Health Authority in June.
The health authority alerted police, notified family members and launched an investigation.
The sisters believe someone at the care home must have witnessed their father being abused — possibly even the whistleblower.
"Based on the description that we were given as to that type of abuse, someone had to see it in order to give that clear of a description of what took place," Trauer said.
The sisters say Extendicare has asked them not to disclose details of the abuse other than to say it was physical.
"How could anybody let that kind of behaviour go and not contact the police the first time they saw it — never mind three times. I just don't understand," Klassen said.
Klassen and Trauer say their father had always been polite to the staff, and used to thank them whenever they did something for him.
However, that changed last summer. Middleton started acting out whenever workers would change his undergarments.
"Don't touch me there, get away from me, don't touch me," Trauer said her dad would yell at care home staff.
He would also yell "I don't like that. Go away,'" Klassen said.
They thought it was because of his dementia, but now they believe it was because of the abuse.
"It's bad enough to have had to put him to rest and then to find out after the fact that his last few months of life were living in such horrific conditions," Klassen said.
The sisters say Middleton used to tell them he wasn't ready to die. They believe he lost the will to live.
Care home understaffed
The sisters say a police detective called to introduce himself and tell the family that investigators are working hard to get to the bottom of what happened. He also told them the police probe would be a lengthy one.
"I want these people to be held accountable for their actions in whatever form that may be, whether that's through the courts or whether it's through the loss of their jobs and the prevention of them ever working in health care again," Klassen said.
The sisters are also hoping to connect with the families of the other victims.
"They understand what we're going through, what we're feeling," Trauer said. "So I think having support from other families would be helpful."
Klassen, Trauer and Trauer's daughter visited Middleton several times a week, and helped to feed him because the care home was so understaffed.
They say the workers they encountered were loving and kind to their father, and they don't want them to be painted with the same brush as the two health-care aides accused of abusing seniors.
"He would say, 'They treat me well, they're good to me here.' And a lot of them would come up to us and say, 'Yeah, I just love your dad,'" Klassen said.
Trauer says in the early days, she would call for someone to come change her father and they would be right there. But that was no longer the case after the COVID-19 pandemic.
"You would wait and wait and wait," Trauer recalled. "They are so understaffed and they're working as best they can."
She says her dad needed two people to operate a mechanical lift to get him in and out of bed. Sometimes only one staff member was available, other times the lift wasn't available.
"These people are not paid enough," Trauer said. "I wouldn't do that job. But we trust them to look after our loved ones, and there's not enough people to do this job."
Trauer and Klassen say for-profit organizations should not be allowed to run care homes. They want to see the province take over seniors' care to ensure people come before profit.
Through tears, Trauer said it's hard enough losing their father, but to have to live with what happened to him is unbearable.
"To have been physically abused and have been such a strong, powerful man in his day — to have to lay there and take that and not be able to communicate to us what he was going through."
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