Government inaction set stage for horrific events at Rosslyn Retirement Home

Rosslyn Retirement Inc. has been allowed to run multiple retirement homes despite many red flags

QUEEN’S PARK — It’s the job of the Ford government to ensure that corporations like Rosslyn Retirement Inc. are not able to hurt seniors, said NDP MPP for Hamilton West—Ancaster—Dundas Sandy Shaw during question period today.

“The owners of Rosslyn Retirement Inc. in Hamilton have a sketchy history,” said Shaw. “They’ve had a licence revoked because of substandard care. And according to a Hamilton Spectator investigation, the Ministry of Health failed to audit the owners’ previous nursing home chain for years, while at the same time providing them with more than $500 million over the course of a decade. Then the company went bankrupt.”

Despite this history full of red flags, these same owners are now running at least eight retirement homes in the Hamilton and Dundas area, including the Rosslyn home that had every resident except one moved to the hospital on Friday because of a horrific COVID-19 outbreak. That one resident remained at Rosslyn for 18 hours alone, because they were forgotten.

“This is the stuff of nightmares,” said Shaw in the legislature Wednesday.

“Will the Ford government do their jobs and take action to make sure that this private, for-profit corporation, and others like it, are not able to hurt and take advantage of seniors?”