Camera shows rough treatment at LTC home

EDMONTON – A hidden camera inside a long-term care room at the Kipnes Centre for Veterans in Edmonton has captured disturbing footage. Earlier this month, CBC News shared hidden camera footage showing a male patient pulling 89-year-old Eileen Adamson (pictured) out of her bed at the home run by CapitalCare, a wholly owned subsidiary of Alberta Health Services.

Staff at the centre told Adamson’s daughter, Susan Carter, that her mother had fallen out of bed. But Carter learned the truth when she reviewed footage from the camera she had set up last summer, because she was worried the man had a history of wandering around the facility.

After that incident, Carter looked through more video footage and found other incidents that shocked her. On Dec. 7, 2014, the camera captured two workers at the centre trying to get Adamson out of her bed using a ceiling hoist. In the video, one worker berates the senior as she is being lifted.

At one point, Adamson appears to be pleading to be allowed to sit down. “Stand up! Hold!” the worker says as she grabs and shakes Adamson’s arm and neck.

“She is very rough, gruff … that is not a way to treat an elderly lady,” Carter said after watching the video. Staff at the Kipnes Centre were told about the video last week. Since then, workers have turned out the lights whenever they are working in Adamson’s room.

Another video shot later, in the dark, shows a worker turning the camera away from Adamson’s bed so it can’t record what’s happening.

“I immediately thought, ‘Well, one of the staff has sabotaged us here,’“ said Carter, who has become increasingly worried for her mother’s safety.

Deb Gordon, of Alberta Health Services, said an investigation is under way. “We expect our staff to treat everyone with dignity and respect,” she said.

Gordon was unable to say whether the caregivers involved could be fired at the end of the investigation.

The staff members who appeared in the ceiling hoist video have been reassigned while investigations take place by CapitalCare and Protection of Persons in Care, the official government body that investigates alleged abuse in care homes.