Ontario Superior Court Orders Long Term Care Homes to Follow Public Health Directives To Let Nurses Determine What PPE they Require

April 29, 2020, Kitchener, Ontario

Posted by: Robert Deutschmann, Personal Injury Lawyer

The Ontario Nurses Association and its members working in long-term care homes in Ontario were please with the Superior Ontario Court ruling that ordered four specific long-term care homes to rectify many serious health and safety issues. These issues have resulted in COVID-19 outbreaks that have decimated the elderly residents of these homes.

According to the ONA website,

“It is truly a huge relief to know that after exhausting all other avenues, the Ontario Superior Court has agreed with ONA that these employers must follow health and safety practices to prevent the spread of infection among long-term care residents and the registered nurses and health professionals who care for them,” said Vicki McKenna, RN, ONA President. “ONA is thrilled that our members will have access to the proper protective equipment they need to protect themselves, and therefore their residents, and that the homes’ administrators will be forced to follow infection control practices – and put safety over profit.”

The ONA filed for an urgent injunction for a ruling that the homes must comply with public health directives that require the homes to respect the professional and clinical judgement of the nurses in determining how to protect themselves and residents. The ruling by Mr. Justice E.M. Morgan directed that the decisions regarding what PPE and other safety equipment and measures are required in the delivery of health care to residents is to be made by the nurses NOT by the management and bureaucrats in the homes.

Some reports have cited that upper level managers were wearing PPE when the nurses and other care staff in homes did not have access to PPE.

This important and pointed decision cited Mr. Justice Archie Campbell’s 2003 SARS report which also emphasized the importance of keeping the front line staff who sacrifice their personal interests to those under their care for the benefit of their patients and society at large.

The ONA also reported that,

Mr. Justice Morgan also called the private homes’ suggestion that nurses’ quest for masks, protective gear and cohorting of patients was ‘for the nurses’ own narrow, private interest was “ironic” and “seems to sorely miss the mark.”

“Now, nurses and health-care professionals will have access to appropriate PPE, residents will be cohorted and proper infection control measures will be brought into these homes,” said McKenna. “I am optimistic that these measures may soon result in putting out the raging spread of COVID-19 in these homes.”

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