Honouring victims of COVID-19, neglect at CHSLD Herron: fifth anniversary

In Quebec, March 11, is the national day of remembrance for victims of COVID-19, and this year marks five years since the devastation.

“Five years later, it kind of feels like 15 and at the same time, it kind of feels like six months ago,” said Peter Wheeland, parents died in Quebec seniors’ homes in 2020.

Wheeland’s parents Ken and Connie both contracted the virus while in seniors’ homes – and Ken died due to complications of the virus in spring of 2020.

His mother did get sick with the virus, as well.

“She was admitted at the Lakeshore General with COVID-19, but she recovered from it,” said Wheeland. “And she had a fall from her bed nine months later, broke her hip and we say that she died from a broken hip, but it’s more like she died from a broken heart because she’d lost the man that she’d shared her life with and her five kids with just a few months before.”

Before Ken was transferred to a Lasalle residence when the pandemic hit, the couple had both lived at the now infamous Herron residence in Dorval, where seniors were left on their own, dehydrated and malnourished, and sitting in their own feces.

At least 47 people died there during the first wave of COVID-19.

“I put myself on the list to go and help out the nursing homes, but I had no inclination, I didn’t know the harsh reality that I was going to face,” said Loredana Mule, registered nurse.

CityNews spoke with Mule on April 8, 2020; she told CityNews that she believed patients were sitting in urine and feces for about a day or so. Her concerns sparked several investigations at the time.

“What struck a chord with me was there was nobody,” said Mule. “I felt like it had been abandoned. And so I yelled out some names and nobody, I didn’t know what I had to do. I didn’t know if I was to give medication. There was no direction, there was nobody.”

When the regional health authority took over Herron in late March 2020, there were three employees caring for 133 residents – something Connie lived through.

“No one came to get her out of bed,” said Wheeland. No one brought her breakfast. Her urine bag on the side of the bed was so full that it exploded, it was all over the floor.”

“I was very, very saddened, almost in shock,” said Mule. “And it dawned on me that my own mother was in a nursing home. So my first instinct the next morning, was to pull her out.”

A 2022 Quebec coroner’s report into long-term care deaths of seniors during the first wave of the pandemic found private CHSLD’s, like Herron, should receive some government subsidies to ensure they can provide residents with proper care.

“I hope some measures have been imposed,” said Mule.

Herron has since closed and Wheeland says more should be done to make sure something like this never happens again.

“Those of us who lost our parents, they’ve been buried for four or five years now,” said Wheeland. “So, it’s a bit behind us but I don’t think that we’ve seen a lot of progress.”