Canadian care home accused of gross negligence over virus handling

Young journalists club

News ID: 45776
Publish Date: 8:41 - 17 April 2020
A shocking report published by The New York Times reveals harrowing details about how the staff at a Canadian care home let the elderlies suffer to death when the new coronavirus pandemic hit the facility.

Canadian care home accused of gross negligence over virus handlingCanadian care home accused of gross negligence over virus handlingThe report published on Thursday said that authorities in the Canadian region of Quebec are investigating accusations of gross negligence at Résidence Herron, a private nursing home for the elderly in Montreal, where 31 bodies were discovered last week.

Members of the local health authority, which took control of Résidence Herron upon calls by two remaining staff in the facility, said they had found the dead bodies of the elderly mired in excrement and unfed for days.

Quebec prime minister François Legault has admitted there has been signs of gross negligence in the care home while ordering the local police and other authorities to launch a probe.

The local government in Quebec has also asked the federal government for help as the French-speaking region remains the hardest hit in Canada by COVID-19, the disease caused by new coronavirus, with latest figures showing there have been nearly 16,000 confirmed cases of the virus and 630 deaths.

There are reports that other nursing homes in the affluent region have been overwhelmed by patients as it has been the case for many care homes in the United States and across Europe.

Bodies of the elderly and people in need of care have been found in nursing facilities in the US states of New Jersey of Washington in recent weeks.

Authorities in Britain and other European countries have admitted that the daily updates on the number of new infections and deaths related to the new coronavirus pandemic do not include those living in care homes.

The global tally for the number of COVID-19 cases is nearing the 2.15-million mark while more than 144,000 people have died of the disease since it began in China nearly four months ago.

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