St. Joseph's Health Care is apologizing for the physical and sexual abuse 19 residents at its Mount Hope Centre for Long Term Care suffered at the hands of one of its nurses.
The College of Nurses of Ontario on Wednesday lifted a publication ban on the name of the facility where Susan Muzylowsky was employed between October 2008 and September 2014.
Muzylowsky was a registered practical nurse at Marian Villa, before it merged with St. Mary's to become Mount Hope in January. She admitted to abusing residents, some sexually, over an eight month period.
St. Joseph’s president and CEO Dr. Gillian Kernaghan says Muzylowsky was suspended within one hour after abuse allegations surfaced on August 5, 2014 and never returned to work. She was formally terminated one month later.
"We extended an apology both to the residents and the substitute decision makers of those who are not capable residents and expressed our deep regret that this happened while they were in our care," says Dr. Kernaghan.
She went on to say Mount Hope has zero tolerance for abuse and neglect of residents and applauded staff for reporting their concerns about Muzylowsky.
Nearly two years since the abuse came to light, Dr. Kernaghan says they notified London police on Wednesday.
"We are pleased to cooperate with the police and we have now indicated to the police and filed a report with the police so they can come and do their own investigation of this incident," says Dr. Kernaghan. "We will obviously be cooperating fully with the police.
St. Joseph's has come under scrutiny for not reporting the incident sooner to police but Dr. Kernaghan says whether it was a criminal act was a judgement call.
"There is objectivity in that reporting and at the time, based on the interviews and determining all that had happened, the decision was made that it did not meet the threshold to call the police," says Dr. Kernaghan. "We also had the Ministry of Health inspectors who came in and did their own critical incident review. They did a review of our internal review and our policy and procedures and they did not indicate that we should be calling the police either."
As a way of preventing similar incidents of abuse in the future St. Joseph's has repeatedly reminded staff of their obligation to report any abuse that they observe. Residents and their families have been told regularly how to come forward with concerns.
"Obviously, this would be totally inconsistent behaviour with the values of this organization and how we would expect them to treat anyone within our organization," says Dr. Kernaghan. "We have educated our staff on what is determined appropriate behaviour and also what would be considered abusive behaviour."
Details of the abuse were made public at a College of Nurses discipline committee hearing in May. According to the agreed statement of facts, Muzylowsky made a number of inappropriate and demeaning comments to residents at Mount Hope including calling them pigs and whiners. She touched or spanked six residents on the buttocks and frequently made derogatory comments in describing residents’ genitalia.
On one occasion, Muzylowsky said to a resident, “You haven’t seen rough yet. I’ll give you something to cry about. Quit being a sissy.” On three occasions Muzylowsky rolled a 92-year-old woman over in a rough manner, causing the woman pain. She also refused pain and Parkinson’s medication to other residents. She told colleagues not to change soiled bed soaker pads so the next shift would have to do it. Colleagues were said to be scared and intimidated by Muzylowsky, who often hurled insults at them.
Muzylowsky resigned from practice permanently in December 2015.
The College of Nurses originally requested the publication ban on the name of the facility to protect the abused residents’ personal information. It later decided the request was overly cautious as the residents' identities are protected by a separate publication ban.
St. Joseph's did not object to making the name of the facility public.
