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One of the women said her mother never received a shower and wasn’t taken to the toilet again after she complained about infection control.

However, the complaints about care weren’t unfounded. An investigation launched by the Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care into the care of one of the women found the home was non-compliant with legislation governing long-term care in at least five instances.

A third woman received a trespass notice from the same institution but declined to speak to the Citizen.

Their revelations come in the same month a personal support worker was caught on film repeatedly punching an elderly resident at the Garry J. Armstrong long-term care home, which is also run by the City of Ottawa. The man’s family had installed cameras in the room after becoming concerned about unexplained injuries to the largely non-verbal dementia patient. The worker pleaded guilty to assault.

The retired nurse whose mother is severely disabled said she too installed cameras in her mother’s room and bathroom after receiving the no trespass order.

“They are taking a layer of protection from my mother. When you strip the most important layer of protection — and someone who knows what they are looking at — you are putting my mother at risk.”

In two instances, the installed cameras have caught workers in her mother’s room pointedly looking into the camera and saying “F— you”, in one case, and “Motherf—–” in another.

The no trespass orders — which limit when and where they can visit their mothers — have had a negative impact on their mothers’ physical and mental health, the retired nurses say. One of the elderly women developed open bed sores after the order was issued to her daughter. Her daughter believes they developed because she was no longer able to check her mother’s skin each day as she was being cared for, which she had previously done.