Family of Parkside resident grateful mother is still alive

Brian Albert’s 98-year-old mother caught COVID-19 during the outbreak at Parkside Extendicare last year, but she managed to fight off the infection – something for which he feels lucky.

“All I know is I go see my mom every day, she’s still alive, I’m thankful for that,” said Albert.

On Thursday, the Saskatchewan Ombudsman released a report detailing all kinds of mistakes and problems that led to that outbreak and allowed it to become the deadliest care home outbreak the province has seen.

One of the problems pointed out in the report is that the home still had four residents living in one room.

Albert’s mother was in one of those rooms. He said one of her roommates went to the hospital with pneumonia but came back with COVID-19. The other two residents in the room caught the virus, and two days later Albert’s mother did too.

“She beat it from there but it was quite a, ten days or whatever, that I wasn’t sure if she was going to make it or not,” explained Albert.

He said it was a really tough time.

“I did the whole priest, church, get everything ready to go. They had doctors and nurses with different things that they’re using to treat her – steroids, oxygen – it’s not a pleasant thing.”

It’s now been several months, but Albert said his mother isn’t fully recovered. She’s relegated to a wheelchair now.

“She used to be able to go with her walker before, now she can’t. That’s really hard. And now she can’t go to the bathroom anymore by herself, she has to wait for somebody to come answer the bell.

It’s a whole different life now,” said Albert.

Albert isn’t surprised or frustrated by what came out in the report. He said he hosts a barbecue there every year and got to know some of the people. He said he has opinions on what was found, but he didn’t want to judge.

Albert is incredibly grateful for the staff at the home but also sorry for what they had to go through during the outbreak.

“If they wouldn’t have come to work every day, my mom wouldn’t be here right now. They came, they washed the toilets, they made food. Meanwhile, the building is being ravaged by COVID and they’re working for how much an hour. I don’t know if I could do that, and yet they still came,” said Albert.

Where Albert has respect for the staff, it’s a different story on his feelings toward the Extendicare company. He said that if the company did something that affected the well-being of the residents or staff then it should be held accountable.

The health authority is taking over the administration of Extendicare’s homes for 30 days, but Albert said Parkside is already better than it was.

“I think Extendicare got a bit of a shock and really sort of toed the line a little bit. There’s no more four people in a room. I’m pretty sure they don’t reuse all the gowns and gloves and all that stuff that they had to do,” said Albert.

The Ombudsman’s report revealed a lot but Albert believes even more will come out in an upcoming class-action lawsuit against the company over the outbreak.