I am 72 and most probably in my last quarter (but I’ve still got game!). I’ve got a few health issues but, caught in time, nothing life-threatening at the moment. Many, many seniors (younger and older) have far more physical and mental challenges than me, quite a few of them are currently residing in for-profit nursing homes, allowing their families to take a breather from what can be an around-the-clock commitment and now sleep soundly, knowing that their loved ones are safe, secure and expertly cared for.
Well, not always.
Meet Melissa Miller. She’s a partner in the Toronto-based firm Howie Sacks and Henry LLP, specializing in personal injury—most notably litigating cases involving negligence. Since 2018, she’s been suing for-profit nursing home corporations including Extendicare, Rivera, Sienna Senior Living and Chartwell (er hello there Mike Harris whose Common Sense Revolution created private health care and, in due course, paid him a hefty stipend to chair its board until 2022) either individually, or, in the much harder to get a case to trial due to the enormous resources provided by corporations for their defence lawyers, mass torts.
This film ought to become required viewing for those likely to end up in one of these facilities at some point as well as their families and friends.
Because these entities are for profit, their primary goal is to increase dividends to their shareholders; providing first-class health care to its inmates—oops sorry, paying clients—is very far from job 1. As is demonstrated succinctly in the interviews (some anonymous to ensure safety) of PSWs, nurses and all-important practitioner: a dental hygienist—too often forgotten as vital to overall health), the point is made several times to families in distress—dealing with far-below acceptable health outcomes for their loved ones—should not generally blame the frontline workers but instead focus their wrath on those whose bank accounts (either as senior management or shareholders) benefit every time a cost is reduced or eliminated.
To make the legal entanglements even more unlikely to reach satisfactory verdicts, the Ontario government passed legislation (2020 during COVID), to protect these wrongly focused entities from lawsuits.
A number of important points are deftly made by the filmmakers: one interviewee is unable to identify the meal that is placed before her (“What the heck is this food?”); the notion that instead of being boiled and unusable, more of the clients’ clothes should be allowed onsite as a daily reminder of times past; a large number of staff must sign NDAs (non-disclosure agreements) when moving on—fired or voluntarily).
Particularly telling is a mock trial populated by senior members of Miller’s firm where the expected browbeating of defence lawyers (“But didn’t you choose to come here?”, “Couldn’t you have done more for [client] yourself?”), readily demonstrating how the hope of any sort of justice faces an uphill battle for those who have lost their loved ones sooner they should have. Cynically, the custodians of challenged lives can soothe what remains of their consciences by knowing that “Oh well, they’ve come here to die anyway.”
To ease some of the pain and artistically make important several important points, Lauren Bélec’s original score (notably the piano interventions) and Lisa Alleyne’s boldly colourful illustrations are most welcome additions to this necessarily sombre mix of sad stories and situations.
And yes, some individual cases have been settled (one in particular resonating to the recent settlement reached by Smartmatic with Newsmax—both defendants opting to end their cases quietly rather than having so much dirty laundry aired in public). But the mass torts, winding their way through countless motions and delays, remain to be seen and, most hopefully, heard. Perhaps those results will pave the way for a Health Sense Revolution, putting human dignity and long-term care far, far ahead of corporate greed. JWR