Health agency to pay $160,000 for elder abuse

The Quebec Human Rights Commission has ordered the regional health agency in the Beauce to pay $160,000 to victims of elder abuse at five long-term care facilities in the area. The call for compensation follows a four-year investigation into allegations of physical and verbal abuse against 13 seniors, in their 80s and 90s at the time, who lived in homes in the region southeast of Quebec City. Eight of the victims have since died. The commission concluded that the patients were hostages to the moods of their caregivers and neglected on a regular basis. "We found people who had been sitting in their soiled diapers for hours on end. We now call it 'the diaper wars,' " said Huguette Giroux, director of the Centre de santé et services sociaux de la Beauce.

Read More