Why the military was the right tool to rip the lid off Canada's long-term care crisis | CBC News

Ursula Drehlich died on April 23 after being infected with the novel coronavirus. The 80-year-old, who immigrated to Canada with her parents from Germany in the 1950s, had multiple health issues stemming from cancer treatment four decades ago, conditions that had left her wheelchair-bound by the end.

Lyon was told in early April her mother had tested positive for COVID-19. In the end, Lyon was told, her feisty mother "slipped away peacefully.".

Drehlich was a resident of the Orchard Villa long-term care home in Pickering, Ont., one of the facilities most heavily criticized in reports filed by the Canadian military medical teams sent into dozens of seniors homes in Quebec and Ontario to help overwhelmed staff cope with the pandemic.

What separates Orchard Villa from the pack are the allegations of capricious cruelty — including a claim that one resident choked to death while being fed lying down.

Lyon had her own list of issues with her mother's care before the pandemic hit, and had filed complaints against the centre.

But reading the military's account of what their members found in the home where her mother lived for seven years left her thunderstruck — and feeling somewhat guilty.

Her legal team enclosed in the statement of claim, filed in the Ontario Superior Court, a litany of complaints filed against Orchard Villa, including 65 written warnings and 13 compliance orders issued between 2017 and 2019 — all part of the public record.

There have been many media investigations into the dire state of long-term care homes, including work done recently by CBC's Marketplace.

When Quebec made the initial request for troops to backstop its failing long-term care system, many in government and the defence establishment questioned whether the military was the appropriate institution to tackle the job. "In Canada, we shouldn't have soldiers taking care of seniors," Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said.

It was an outside-of-the-box use of the military — which Lyon now believes was entirely appropriate.

The focused yet compassionate perspective of soldiers in the face of inhumane conditions was precisely the tool needed to rip the lid off conditions in some long-term care homes, she said, adding she hopes it will persuade politicians to finally act.

One of the original purposes of the class action, which has yet to be certified, was to shine a light on critical issues at Orchard Villa such as chronic under-staffing, said Lyon's lawyer Gary Will.

We can't do this for long," said Sajjan, who noted the military has stripped its own medical capacity to the bone to meet the demand