For the families of patients at Grenfell and District Pioneer Home, the last week has been a total upheaval.
“It was determined that because mould was found in numerous locations in this facility, including some resident rooms and some common areas,” Karen Earnshaw, vice president of integrated rural health for the Saskatchewan Health Authority said.
That means the 21 patients who live there full-time will have to be transferred to other locations; away from their family, their community.
“This is a real let down, a real let down,” Rod Hack said.
Hack’s 96-year-old father was a patient at the home and Grenfell’s former mayor.
“He’s just devastated. He loved this community, he was hoping to retire here and spend the remainder of his years here, but unfortunately, that’s not going to happen,” Hack said.
Patients will be transferred to long-term care beds in Indian Head, Broadview, Kipling, Moosomin, Melville, Montmartre or Wolseley while the Saskatchewan Health Authority determines the extent of the damage.
“Further investigation about the extent of the mould, and/or determination about what remediation options are available be done,” Earnshaw said.
“This is a temporary relocation, but we can’t tell you what the next steps are until we do this first step,” she continued.
The move affects more than just the families. Hack says the loss of the long-term care home will leave a big hole in the community.
“It’s a sudden impact on everybody in Grenfell, and it’s going to be a real economic drain of this community because that’s our main employer,” he said.
The Saskatchewan Health Authority couldn’t say what will happen to the employees during the transition.
“All of our employees are unionized, so our first step was to notify our staff, our families and our union partners. That work, about what happens to our employees, will now be the negotiation between the unions and the employer,” Earnshaw said.
The employees aren’t the only unanswered question resulting from the move, one family alleges that staff at the home improperly approached patients about where they would like to be transferred.
“I can say that I’ve heard that residents were just casually approached in the hall asking where they want to go, formal meetings weren’t set up with each of them,” Courtney Mury said.
Mury’s grandmother is a patient at the home and she’s related to two employees who worked there.
She says her family wasn’t involved with talks concerning her grandmother; something that became an issue due to her grandmother’s short-term memory loss.
“Because no family members were there to speak with the manager we really don’t know what was said in that meeting because my grandma doesn’t really remember it,” Mury continued.
“I’m disappointed to see how the situation was handled with my grandma, and her medical issues – that they know about – if they’re trained to deal with her properly and they didn’t take the right steps to do that,” she added.
The Saskatchewan Health Authority denied the allegation.
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