Blanche Dingle died in her Dundas retirement home — and wasn’t found for 36 hours



Blanche Dingle was the happiest she’d been in a long time during her eight-month stay at the Amica Dundas retirement home.

Living among friends in her new home, the 91-year-old retired bookkeeper was freed from the pandemic isolation that had steadily chipped away at her mental and emotional well-being.

Her son Jeff Dingle saw the fog lift from his mother’s spirit every week he visited her.

Until the day he found her dead in her room on April 2.

Three wellness checks were missed by staff — no one found her for the better part of two days.

Blanche had ordered dinner to her room on Thursday, March 31 because she was not feeling well enough to come down to the dining hall. She didn’t order food the next day. Although Amica’s policies mandate a wellness check at least once a day — typically at meal times — no one knocked on Blanche’s door until her son de ella found her on Saturday afternoon.

“The inspector found that (Amica) had failed to ensure that three consecutive checks were completed … over the course of 36 hours, during which time the resident experienced harm,” says an April 7 inspection report by the Retirement Homes Regulatory Authority, Ontario’s retirement home regulator.

“As such, the licensee failed to ensure that staff of the home did not neglect the resident.”

In response to the RHRA findings, Amica said in an emailed statement to the Spectator it has “already implemented new training and education measures for team members that have been approved by the RHRA, all to ensure we maintain the highest level of care in our residence .”

A “break in the chain of pass-over information,” was the reason no one checked on Blanche, Amica said in response to questions from the Spectator. The company did not explain what that chain of information means nor what repercussions, if any, the involved staff face. The company’s statement, attributed to Amica Dundas General Manager Stephanie Jason, did not provide details about its new training or education measures.

“We are deeply saddened by this recent loss to our community. We have extended our sincere condolences to the resident’s family, friends and everyone impacted during this difficult time,” the Amica statement said. “We are committed to ensuring that our safety standards and protocols are consistently upheld.”

An Amica spokesperson said staffing levels at the home, where a one-bedroom unit can cost almost $6,000 a month, did not play a role in Blanche’s case and said the home has remained “fully staffed” through the COVID-19 pandemic.

Jeff Dingle, who was his mother’s primary caregiver, said he is not dwelling on the failure of Amica’s staff because they made her life better for the short time she lived there.

“They made a mistake,” he said. “We were told it was a cardiac issue and she had an enlarged heart. She was 91, heart attacks happen all the time. I should have received a phone call instead of finding her and having to be the one to call the home to inform them.”

Her granddaughter Sarah Dennis is less stoic about the incident, saying the family was “traumatized” and her grandmother deserved more dignity at the end of her life.

“When I was told I recall being a little hysterical saying ‘Why? It seems like this is something so simple. Why wasn’t this already in place? Why wasn’t this done?’” she said. “I would love to be sat down and walked through the investigation and the outcomes. … It does matter to me because if it was a personnel thing, if it was somebody just not doing their job then what was the result of that?”

For years, Blanche lived in a condominium complex not far from Amica’s Hatt Street residence. She was fit and healthy, her son de ella said. Well into her 80s, she served as the treasurer of her condo board and was a leader at the Dundas Seniors Center.

Then the COVID-19 pandemic struck.

The isolation of lockdowns had a drastic impact on her quality of life.

“It was the loneliness and boredom of not being around people which had the biggest impact on her mental and physical well-being,” Jeff Dingle said.

Moving into the high-end Amica home, where some of her friends already lived, changed everything, he said. She was playing bridge, a game she loved, and working out twice a week.

“I saw it each time I visited her,” he said. “She was the happiest she’d been in a long time.”

On March 31, Blanche started to feel nauseous. She took her dinner from her in her room from her and Amica staff checked her vitals from her.

The RHRA inspection report says no checks were done after that. The condition of Blanche’s body de ella indicated she had been dead for more than a day, said her granddaughter de ella.

Blanche’s son and granddaughter said a doctor told them a cardiac issue was the cause of death. An autopsy was conducted, but a coroner’s report has yet to be finished.

“They are still waiting on toxicology and pathology,” Jeff Dingle said.

The Spectator has reviewed RHRA inspection reports of Amica facilities in Hamilton and the surrounding area since the last five years. Blanche’s case is the only incident of resident neglect in dozens of reports across four Amica facilities. The majority of the inspector’s findings were related to administrative and record-keeping issues. At the Dundas home, for instance, inspectors found Amica had failed to produce a written “zero-tolerance” policy on abuse in 2018, and train employees about that policy in 2019.

But the regulation and inspection of retirement homes is far less onerous than it is for long-term care facilities, where residents generally require a much higher level of care.

Residents of retirement homes, which are privately funded and operated, can pay for higher levels of care if they require it. In Blanche’s case, no extra levels of care were required beyond the basic level that all residents received at Amica, which includes the daily wellness check.

Dennis, meanwhile, says her grandmother was a vibrant woman and deserved better.

“She was 91, but she was with it. She had a cellphone. She she was emailing. She still had it going on, ”said her. “We had these family rituals every August to go over to her house de ella for her birthday de ella and for Cactus Festival weekend. That was something we did every year. I miss her.”

Grant LaFleche is an investigative reporter with the Spectator. Reach him via email: [email protected]


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