A ‘sense of danger’ made this RN speak out about what she saw after the Rosslyn was evacuated
Ashley Jenkins knew she couldn't stay quiet when she pulled back the curtain on operations at the Rosslyn Retirement Residence in Hamilton.
She didn't want more people to die.
Jenkins, a nurse, was hired at the Rosslyn through a temp agency in May. Her hiring was part of the home's attempt at compliance with the Retirement Homes Regulatory Authority's (RHRA) order requiring the Rosslyn retain a regulated health professional" before residents could be allowed back.
Her first shift came three days after the home was evacuated amid a COVID-19 outbreak. A total of 64 residents and 22 staff caught COVID. Just before Jenkins was hired, one resident died. Nine more died over the course of her employment. Six more died in June.
What she saw over the course of her two weeks of employment convinced Jenkins the Rosslyn was ill-equipped to re-admit anyone, let alone seniors recovering from COVID.
I can't ... do anything else that could contribute to the loss of more life down the road," Jenkins said.
So she blew the whistle. And she suffered the consequences - chief among them, losing her job with the temp agency, she says.
Many of the allegations Jenkins outlines align with those in the RHRA's reasons for revoking the Rosslyn's licence. The home's licence was revoked June 15, two weeks after Jenkins exposed alleged misconduct at the Rosslyn. Her claims mirror those made to The Spectator in June by other former staff members and former residents' families.
The Spectator provided a list of Jenkins' allegations to the Rosslyn and requested comment but did not hear back.
The temp agency refutes some of her claims, including that she was fired for whistleblowing. The Rosslyn did not respond to requests for comment, but has refuted some of Jenkins' claims in a notice of appeal regarding its licence revocation. In the appeal, the home denies committing any misconduct between May 15, when the home was evacuated, and June 15, when the RHRA stripped its licence. The Rosslyn adds statements from the RN" - Jenkins - ought to have been disregarded" by the RHRA.
The Registrar relied on critical statements made to RHRA by the RN, even after the RN sought to correct her statements and subsequently wrote to Rosslyn, I screwed up. And I am sorry. I was wrong.'" the Rosslyn states in its appeal.
Jenkins disputes writing that. She does say she asked for work at the Rosslyn after the dust settled - she was originally supposed to stay on permanently - but was told no work was available.
Working at the Rosslyn
The Rosslyn is a 64-bed retirement home located at 1322 King St. E. in Hamilton, near Gage Park. It is the site of the city's deadliest COVID-19 outbreak, with a death toll that accounts for more than one-third of all COVID deaths in the city. The home was evacuated May 15. Nearly all residents had COVID and nearly all were taken to hospital.
Jenkins' first day was May 18.
She was hired through Caring Hearts Healthcare Group Inc., a temp agency. Her role was to serve as a co-manager with a registered practical nurse (RPN) and help bring the Rosslyn into compliance with provincial standards. The home had received non-compliance orders from the RHRA and Hamilton public health relating to deficiencies in infection prevention and control, inadequate outbreak response plans and failure to protect residents from neglect." The home needed to be in compliance before residents could return.
Red flags began popping up within hours of her first shift.
Her first task, cleaning out a medication room, took Jenkins and a RPN three days to complete. In the room, they found expired medication, pills outside containers, no narcotic inventory sheet and no medication records for May.
Here we are trying to get a history on the potential people coming back into the home and we don't even have a starting point," she said. What we do have, we're not even sure if it's legitimate."
Things only got worse.
Jenkins said the home's operations manager, a woman named Elizabeth Fife, refused to wear a mask on-site and was verbally abusive, while staff told Jenkins their personal protective equipment (PPE) was locked up and they were only allowed one mask per shift. The home also had a persistent problem with mice and bedbugs, she said.
The Spectator requested comment from Fife through the Rosslyn's lawyer, as well as through her business and personal contacts, but did not get a response. A note in the RHRA's decision to revoke the Rosslyn's licence indicates the home denied PPE was under lock and key despite an internal Rosslyn memo stating PPE should be kept under lock and key."
I was being eaten alive," Jenkins said of bedbugs in the home. I would just start scratching and then I'd look down ... they were just, like, everywhere."
The bugs were in anything" upholstered, she said. When she got home, she'd change in her garage to avoid bringing the bedbugs inside. Once, at the Rosslyn, a mouse ran over her foot.
Speaking out
On June 2, things came to a head.
An RHRA inspector was going to be on-site that day and Fife was on edge, Jenkins said. In a meeting with Jenkins and the RPN, Fife told them to only show the inspector complete and accurate documents. In the event he requested a document that was incomplete or incorrect, Jenkins said Fife directed them to tell the inspector that in the confusion of the evacuation, documents were taken off-site or thrown into a box and are still being sorted.
The Rosslyn denies this in its notice of appeal.
The Registrar (on the basis of the unreliable RN's evidence) found that there had been an attempt to mislead an inspector who was reviewing medication administration documentation," wrote the home, referring to Jenkins as the RN. This was completely false: the inspector had been granted full access to all of Rosslyn's medical records. At no time did Rosslyn interfere with the inspection."
For Jenkins, the instruction to mislead the inspector was a turning point, she said.
Something just kicked in in me," Jenkins said. I don't know if it was my ethical radar or just a sense of danger."
She called the RHRA telling them she was going to quit at the Rosslyn. Then she went looking for the investigator, only to find him with Fife. Fife insisted she speak to Jenkins privately, but the investigator pushed back, successfully.
In the medication room, Jenkins laid bare to the investigator what she'd seen and heard during her two weeks at the Rosslyn. He was already aware of some of her claims since she'd been in regular contact with the RHRA during her employment.
I just said I'm not comfortable with having my name and my licence put on the line for a place that doesn't seem to have its integrity ... on their list of priorities," Jenkins said, or resident care for that (matter)."
As if to illustrate her claims, a loose pill sat on the floor.
The fallout
After her meeting with the investigator, Jenkins walked out. Fife called after her to come back, but she retreated to her car. Then she got a call from her temp agency boss, CEO Vasile Whittaker, asking her to meet with him and Rosslyn management down the road that afternoon. She agreed because she wanted to continue working with Whittaker's temp agency, she said.
At the meeting was Fife, Whittaker and Aldo Martino, one of two brothers linked to the 2003 collapse of the Royal Crest Lifecare chain, the largest nursing home bankruptcy in Ontario's history. The Rosslyn is owned and operated by members of the Martino family. Fife's partner, Annette Martino, is Aldo's sister. Annette and Fife operated boarding houses in Hamilton starting in the late 1970s.
As soon as I walked into that meeting the first thing out of (Martino's) mouth was You created this problem, how are you going to fix it?'" said Jenkins, noting she previously met Martino at the Rosslyn.
The meeting lasted about 45 minutes to one hour. During it, Fife and Martino pressured Jenkins to tell them what she told the investigator, Jenkins said.
She said they told her she misinterpreted the instructions regarding the documents and investigation process. They told her to call the RHRA and say she was emotional and what she shared with the investigator about the documents was a huge misunderstanding" and the home just wanted to put its best foot forward, Jenkins said. She stayed silent through much of the meeting.
In an interview with The Spec, Whittaker denied Fife and Martino pressured Jenkins to recant her statement. They were trying to find out why she was so upset and walked out," he said.
Whittaker said he absolutely" supported Jenkins' decision to blow the whistle.
But less than two weeks later, Jenkins was out of a job.
This is the first of a two-part series about Jenkins, whistleblowing and the Rosslyn. To read the second part in the series, click here.
Katrina Clarke is a Hamilton-based reporter at The Spectator. Reach her via email: katrinaclarke@thespec.com