What’s changed since we ran Natalie’s story of neglect in two Ontario nursing homes? ‘Not a damn thing,’ her granddaughter says

Lisa Neufeld cleaned out her father’s dresser.
She found the file folder, the colour of bone, in the bottom drawer.
Inside were his last will and testament, and the newspaper articles. Now a shade of soft yellow, they were clipped with precision from the pages of the Toronto Star.
A photograph of her grandmother, Natalie Babineau, was on the front page, the face of nursing home neglect. Her story anchored an investigation into substandard care and institutional indifference.
The headline on the front page of Dec. 3, 2003, said: “Natalie’s story.”
The woman in the old family photograph, placed above the newspaper fold, seemed amused when the picture was taken, her head tilted to the right, a single strand of pearls around her neck. Years after that photo was taken, she would die, terribly.
When the newspaper clippings fell out of the file folder on that day in early 2018, a few months after her father died, Neufeld felt an instant hit of sadness that turned to anger, as it always did.
“Nearly 20 years later and not a damn thing has changed,” she said.
Coinciding with the rising number of seniors, the Star has since done numerous investigations into nursing homes in Ontario, exposing the same problems magnified now by the impact of COVID-19. Those stories can be seen today in a special section published in the Star. While Natalie’s story wasn’t the Star’s first investigation into nursing homes, her experience resonated, leading to a pledge for real change, although that promise didn’t hold.
Natalie Babineau was Neufeld’s Grammie.
Natalie died in a Hamilton hospital after a long struggle in two nursing homes that ended with a massive pressure ulcer on her tailbone. It had festered for weeks without her family’s knowledge. By the time they discovered the source of the rotting smell, it was too late.
As the Star story said, “Natalie died on Dec. 24, 2002. She vomited black blood a day earlier and passed away overnight.”
The investigation found neglect and abuse in Ontario nursing homes after examining thousands of records for complaints, inspections and serious occurrences, such as falls or violence. Residents were left in filthy, soaked briefs for hours. They went hungry. Their calls for help were ignored. They lost weight, grew dehydrated and suffered from pressure ulcers.
Seventeen years later, Canada’s military discovered similar conditions after being called in to help at five COVID-ravaged nursing homes in the first wave. When reports of the army’s findings were released last spring, Premier Doug Ford spoke at a news conference, his face red.
“Until yesterday morning,” Ford said, “we didn’t know the full extent of what these homes, these residents, were dealing with.
“The reports that they provided us with were heartbreaking. They were horrific. It is shocking that this can happen here in Canada.”
In 2003, it was “Natalie’s story” and photos of her pressure ulcer that brought the Liberals’ newly-sworn-in health minister, George Smitherman, to tears. Smitherman sat in his Queen’s Park office with a Star reporter and, after collecting himself, promised a “revolution” in long-term care.
“This is not Ontario’s standard,” he said. “This is subpar. We will fix this. We will.”
It led to a new Long-Term Care Homes Act, with the possibility of tougher inspections, but the promise of revolutionary change never materialized.
Natalie’s granddaughter Darlene Marshall was in her early 40s when the Star published the story about her grandmother. She’ll turn 60 this year.
“All her grandchildren are getting older,” Marshall said. “The government doesn’t care about the elderly. And I’m getting to be elderly. They don’t care. We are not useful. They are more concerned about the economy. They do not care about people who cannot contribute to that.”
Struggling with dementia in the final years of her life, Natalie lived in two nursing homes. One was old, filthy and smelled like urine. The next home was new, but Natalie spent most of her time in bed, said Barbara Babineau, who was married to Natalie’s son Andrew.
“We took her out for the weekends and the home said to stop because when she comes back, she’s not happy,” she said.
When the military released its report last spring, detailing seniors in soiled briefs and crying out for help that didn’t come, Babineau listened to the details with amazement.
“I thought, ‘Things haven’t changed in 20 years. Not one bit.’”
Natalie had 10 children, including a daughter named Noella, Lisa Neufeld’s mother, who died from leukemia more than a decade ago.
In 2017, when her father’s dementia grew severe and he needed full-time care, Neufeld started looking for long-term care.
“After knowing what happened to my grandma, to have to put my father into one of these homes, it was a nightmare,” she said. Before she could find a home, her father broke his hip. He died in hospital in December 2017.
“It worries me because as I age, what happens to me?” asked Neufeld, now 46.
“Is there going to be change in another 20 years when I need to start thinking about that? If we’ve only moved an inch, how much more will we improve?” she said.
“When the story came out (in 2003) I thought this is it, they are going to fix what’s wrong and it will be so much better and her life will have meant something in terms of what she had to suffer there. Her story is going to help somebody else and they will fix it.
“Now, I keep telling my kids, just so you know, there is no inheritance. The money is going to take care of me in my old age so I don’t have to go into one of these homes.”