Armview Estates and Fairview Villa, both owned by Shannex Health Care Management, a company headed by Cape Breton businessman Joe Shannon, are laced with stachybotris, the same mould that forced the closing of a Cole Harbour school two weeks ago.

"People are getting sick and the owners are doing absolutely nothing to deal with the problem,'' said an Armview worker, who did not want to be identified. "We're spinning in mud.''

Personal-care employees, most of whom belong to the Canadian Union of Public Employees, are complaining of nausea, headaches, skin rash and trouble breathing.

"It's all about money, that's why they're not moving on this,'' she said.

Environmental tests have found mould in 23 areas inside Armview Estates, a 255-bed privately owned, for-profit chronic-care home on Purcell's Cove Road. Fairview Villa, a 209-bed home on Main Avenue, has fewer hot-spots.

But Shannex vice-president Karen McDougall said the company has moved quickly to remove the immediate risks and is close to a long-term solution.

"Our No. 1 goal is the health and safety of residents, staff and visitors, but we also have to fix the problem with the least amount of disruption,'' she said.

McDougall said it's taking a bit of time to decide the best way to eliminate the mould, which was confirmed last November by air-quality consultant Dr. Thomas Rand. The company is in talks with provincial health officials on whether to repair or rebuild the aging facilities.

She said families of the patients - many elderly and infirm - have been alerted to the problem and have been regularly updated.

Air quality is being constantly monitored.

The mould is the same type that forced Halifax regional school board to shut down Graham Creighton Junior High School last month.

"If they can close a school because of mould, I don't see why they're not doing the same here,'' said an employee.

Robert Wells, health and safety officer with CUPE, said the union is prepared to step up pressure on Shannex management to deal with the problem.

"I am concerned not enough action is being taken to address worker and patient safety,'' he said.

About 200 people, including 20 registered nurses, work at Armview, while about 180 people are employed at Fairview.

The mould, which is visible inside the building, is being blamed on a leaking roof in the west end.

There is also a problem with asbestos at Armview, although it is less of a threat to health, according to one union official.

Monday January 24, 2000

Get flu shot or stay home without pay, workers told

By Carol Harrington / The Canadian Press

Calgary - Alberta plans to follow an Ontario health protocol that has seen hundreds of nursing home workers get suspended without pay for refusing to take flu prevention treatments.

Eight regional medical health officers, mostly in southern Ontario, have given workers a choice: get a flu shot or take anti-viral pills during outbreaks at nursing homes, or stay home without pay. Those who didn't take the treatments were suspended for a period of several days to a few weeks.

"I had a few irate phone calls last year from employees," said Dr. Doug Sider, Brant County's medical health officer, who has so far suspended 71 workers.

"When one thinks of the economic consequences, it could be substantial to someone, losing a big chunk of a month's pay."

The protocol is authorized by a rarely used provision in Ontario's Health Protection and Promotion Act.

Although the total number of suspended workers isn't known, Dr. Hanif Kassam, medical health officer in Waterloo, Ont., said it's in the hundreds.

The workers are urged to get government-funded flu shots in October to protect the elderly, who are extremely susceptible to flu and more likely to get pneumonia or other potentially fatal complications.

Most provinces reported 70 to 90 per cent of nursing home residents were vaccinated in 1998, compared with 30 to 45 per cent of nursing home staff. Some people who reject vaccination believe it doesn't work or causes side-effects, such as the flu itself.

Other provinces are closely watching Ontario's stand and Alberta plans a similar scheme by the next flu season.

"There's a number of legal aspects we have to look at," said Dr. Karen Grimsrud, Alberta's deputy health officer.

"It's not a simple issue, the right to refuse medication versus the rights of patients to be in a safe environment."

Provincial medical health officers in British Columbia, Manitoba and Nova Scotia say they are monitoring Ontario's practice but aren't quite ready to take on a similar plan for fear of legal challenges.

But so far, it has approval from civil rights groups and a labour arbitrator has upheld it in one case. Four employees at a nursing home in Kingston, Ont., filed a grievance in 1997 against their employer's order to get a flu shot and take an anti-viral medication called amantadine. They claimed it was an unreasonable bodily invasion.

"The refusal to permit non-immunized staff to work was not disciplinary in purpose or intent," states the decision that dismissed the grievance in December 1998.

"It was a measure designed to isolate potential sources for transmission of viral infection."

The ruling noted that employees are exempt from the policy if they are pregnant or nursing, allergic to the vaccine or had sound medical reasons to refuse the antiviral medicine.

Stephen Jenuth, president of the Alberta Civil Liberties Association, said his group doesn't have a problem with Ontario's protocol because it offers choices. "As long as people are given the option - they aren't forced, they aren't fired as a result of making a decision for their own personal health - then it's not an invasion of civil liberties," Jenuth said.

The Ottawa-based Civil Liberties Association agrees.

"It probably is not unreasonable to expect workers to do the responsible thing and protect the patients that they serve," said Brenda Dunbar, the association's legal director.

The deaths of 25 residents of a Kitchener nursing home in 1998 prompted the Ontario Ministry of Health to notify the province's 37 regional health officers they have the authority to suspend workers who are not immunized.