Ontario’s chief coroner testifies at Elizabeth Wettlaufer inquiry
Unusual patterns of deaths in long-term care homes are not always tracked or analyzed because some death reports are not filed electronically, as rules require, the province’s chief coroner said Monday.
Dr. Dirk Huyer’s assessment came at the public inquiry examining the circumstances that allowed 51-year-old Elizabeth Wettlaufer to kill eight elderly patients living at long-term care homes in southwestern Ontario.
The former nurse confessed to killing the patients between 2007 and 2014 by injecting them with overdoses of insulin, as well as trying to kill several others at long-term care residences and private homes where she worked before seeking psychological help.
Huyer, who began testifying at the inquiry on Monday, outlined systems that have been put in place to track deaths at long-term care facilities and identify unusual patterns at individual homes. But those measures do not paint a complete picture of activities at the province’s long-term care facilities, he said.