Old on the Road

The number of seniors in Ontario will increase by 30 percent in ten years. This information was phlegmatically attached to recent news reports of allegations of abuse at a long-term care facility in Peterborough, Ontario. Camille Parent’s 85-year-old mother, Hellen MacDonald, suffers from dementia and resides at St. Joseph’s at Fleming, a non-profit seniors’ residence affiliated with Fleming College. When Parent found her covered in scratches and bruises earlier this year (having previously suffered broken bones after an attack by another resident), he installed a hidden video camera in his mother’s room for three weeks. The camera captured horrible images of abuse, contempt and neglect: a “caregiver” roughly handling the clearly docile patient while changing her (door to the room wide open) and then shoving a feces-smeared cloth in her face. An attendant blowing his nose on her clean sheets. Two employees apparently making out at the foot of...