Nurse fired over elder abuse accusations

A woman fired over accusations of elder abuse at a Peterborough nursing home is fighting to get her job back. CHCH reporter Pamela Vanmeer broke this story in May 2013 and was at an arbitration hearing held Monday.

Four employees of this nursing home were fired after hidden camera video caught them acting inappropriately in 84-year old Hellen MacDonald’s room. One man, fired after being caught blowing his nose on MacDonald’s sheets, has already been reinstated. Another, caught kissing and groping a co-worker has also been given his job back. But this case is different. To many people, including MacDonald’s family, Peggy Perrault’s actions are far more egregious.

This is one of the videos that got Peggy Perrault fired. It shows her aggressively handling Hellen MacDonald, who at the time of this video, was recovering from a broken hip.
It was that broken hip, along with a black eye that prompted Camille Parent to put the hidden camera in his moms room.

In another video Perrault is seen shoving a feces covered rag toward MacDonald’s face. Perrault was fired a few weeks after the videos were made public. Parent says that was the right thing to do.

But Perrault disagreed and wants her job back. She covered her face as the media descended on the first day of an arbitration hearing. We can’t tell you what happened in the hearing as the media was barred. Arbitration hearings are public unless there are compelling reasons for excluding them. The adjudicator John Stout agreed with the union and St. Joseph’s that the privacy of the ex-employee was compelling enough.