Officials are urgently inspecting seven retirement and residential care homes linked to the same owners as the Rosslyn Retirement Residence after it was evacuated because of a massive COVID-19 outbreak.
They include five retirement homes — Dundas Retirement Place, Northview Seniors Residence, Cathmar Manor, Montgomery Retirement Home and Emerald Lodge — as well as two residential care facilities Victoria Manor I and II.
Six of the seven facilities, along with the Rosslyn, have previously been ordered by public health to improve infection controls or face consequences.
Staff will finish inspecting the retirement homes Wednesday and plan to wrap up their investigations at the residential care facilities by Friday, according spokesperson Kelly Anderson.
“Given the issues at the Rosslyn specifically, public health decided to look at the other seven more closely,” she explained.
The homes are all associated with the Martino family, which owned the Royal Crest Lifecare chain of nursing homes that controversially filed for bankruptcy in 2003, as first reported by the Hamilton Spectator.
Public health confirmed the ownership and operation of the eight homes are linked in variety of ways to members of the same family.
The Rosslyn was emptied over the weekend and residents transported to hospital after dozens tested positive for the virus.
Sixty-four residents at the 64-bed facility had contracted COVID-19 as of Wednesday, along with 20 employees.
Public health says two residents — an 86-year-old man and an 80-year-old man — died Tuesday, bringing the number of resident deaths to four.
The home has not responded to repeated requests calls and emails asking questions about the situation at the home.
Calls to personal numbers for the Martino family at a home in Ancaster also went unanswered Tuesday.
A woman who picked up the phone at North American Living Centres Ltd. at 307 King Street East, which is linked to the family and listed as the business address for several of the homes, said she had “no information” to provide then hung up.
A paramedic pushes a stretcher into the Rosslyn during a mass transfer of residents on May 15. (Dan Taekema/CBC)
The earlier orders on six of the seven homes that are being inspected again resulted from a round of inspections of dozens of homes across the city by public health in mid-April.
The Montgomery Retirement Home is the only facility that wasn’t written up at that time.
Issues identified at the other homes, including the Rosslyn, ranged from lacking a contingency plan for enough staff to safely operate to not having an adequate supply of personal protective equipment, the orders from public health show.
‘Truly a nightmare’
The Rosslyn was brought up during Question Period at Queen’s Park Wednesday when Hamilton West—Ancaster—Dundas MPP Sandy Shaw described the outbreak as “horrific” and referred to the fact a resident had been left behind and without care for nearly a day when the facility was cleared.
“This is truly a nightmare,” she stated.
Ontario Health Minister Christine Elliott responded, saying the home was evacuated because of concerns about its “physical structure and to keep people safe and healthy.”
She noted the government is aware one resident was forgotten during the transfer, saying it’s something that never should have happened.”
“That is not acceptable under any terms … and we are working with our partners to review the protocols and understand why this could have happened, and to make sure that this never happens again.”
Some Ontario doctors have started offering a free shot that can protect babies from respiratory syncytial virus while Quebec will begin its immunization program next month.
The new shot called Nirsevimab gives babies antibodies that provide passive immunity to RSV, a major cause of serious lower respiratory tract infections for infants and seniors, which can cause bronchiolitis or pneumonia.
Ontario’s ministry of health says the shot is already available at some doctor’s offices in Ontario with the province’s remaining supply set to arrive by the end of the month.
Quebec will begin administering the shots on Nov. 4 to babies born in hospitals and delivery centers.
Parents in Quebec with babies under six months or those who are older but more vulnerable to infection can also book immunization appointments online.
The injection will be available in Nunavut and Yukon this fall and winter, though administration start dates have not yet been announced.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 21, 2024.
-With files from Nicole Ireland
Canadian Press health coverage receives support through a partnership with the Canadian Medical Association. CP is solely responsible for this content.
ISLAMABAD (AP) — Polio cases are rising ahead of a new vaccination campaign in Pakistan, where violence targeting health workers and the police protecting them has hampered years of efforts toward making the country polio-free.
Since January, health officials have confirmed 39 new polio cases in Pakistan, compared to only six last year, said Anwarul Haq of the National Emergency Operation Center for Polio Eradication.
The new nationwide drive starts Oct. 28 with the aim to vaccinate at least 32 million children. “The whole purpose of these campaigns is to achieve the target of making Pakistan a polio-free state,” he said.
Pakistan regularly launches campaigns against polio despite attacks on the workers and police assigned to the inoculation drives. Militants falsely claim the vaccination campaigns are a Western conspiracy to sterilize children.
Most of the new polio cases were reported in the southwestern Balochistan and southern Sindh province, following by Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province and eastern Punjab province.
The locations are worrying authorities since previous cases were from the restive northwest bordering Afghanistan, where the Taliban government in September suddenly stopped a door-to-door vaccination campaign.
Afghanistan and Pakistan are the two countries in which the spread of the potentially fatal, paralyzing disease has never been stopped. Authorities in Pakistan have said that the Taliban’s decision will have major repercussions beyond the Afghan border, as people from both sides frequently travel to each other’s country.
The World Health Organization has confirmed 18 polio cases in Afghanistan this year, all but two in the south of the country. That’s up from six cases in 2023. Afghanistan used a house-to-house vaccination strategy this June for the first time in five years, a tactic that helped to reach the majority of children targeted, according to WHO.
Health officials in Pakistan say they want the both sides to conduct anti-polio drives simultaneously.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Millions of people with private health insurance would be able to pick up over-the-counter methods like condoms, the “morning after” pill and birth control pills for free under a new rule the White House proposed on Monday.
Right now, health insurers must cover the cost of prescribed contraception, including prescription birth control or even condoms that doctors have issued a prescription for. But the new rule would expand that coverage, allowing millions of people on private health insurance to pick up free condoms, birth control pills, or “morning after” pills from local storefronts without a prescription.
The proposal comes days before Election Day, as Vice President Kamala Harris affixes her presidential campaign to a promise of expanding women’s health care access in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to undo nationwide abortion rights two years ago. Harris has sought to craft a distinct contrast from her Republican challenger, Donald Trump, who appointed some of the judges who issued that ruling.
“The proposed rule we announce today would expand access to birth control at no additional cost for millions of consumers,” Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra said in a statement. “Bottom line: women should have control over their personal health care decisions. And issuers and providers have an obligation to comply with the law.”
The emergency contraceptives that people on private insurance would be able to access without costs include levonorgestrel, a pill that needs to be taken immediately after sex to prevent pregnancy and is more commonly known by the brand name “Plan B.”
Without a doctor’s prescription, women may pay as much as $50 for a pack of the pills. And women who delay buying the medication in order to get a doctor’s prescription could jeopardize the pill’s effectiveness, since it is most likely to prevent a pregnancy within 72 hours after sex.
If implemented, the new rule would also require insurers to fully bear the cost of the once-a-day Opill, a new over-the-counter birth control pill that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved last year. A one-month supply of the pills costs $20.
Federal mandates for private health insurance to cover contraceptive care were first introduced with the Affordable Care Act, which required plans to pick up the cost of FDA-approved birth control that had been prescribed by a doctor as a preventative service.
The proposed rule would not impact those on Medicaid, the insurance program for the poorest Americans. States are largely left to design their own rules around Medicaid coverage for contraception, and few cover over-the-counter methods like Plan B or condoms.
