Stolen Time (8/10)

by Tony Medley

95 Minutes.

Written and directed by Helene Klodawski, this documentary reveals the tawdry, untold story about for-profit nursing homes in Canada. Canadian attorney Melissa Miller has been suing some of the largest for-profit nursing homes in Canada since 2018

Klodawski interviews many knowledgeable people, like Brent Rigby, a Private Investigator who was hired to investigate systemic negligence by Extendicare, Revera, Inc., and Sienna Senior Living. He says, “There’s essentially no regulatory oversight and no repercussions at all for the complete systemic failure across all the companies while they bring in record profits.” Pat Armstrong writes about long term care in many countries. Lisa Alleyne worked as a personal care worker (PSW) in nursing homes run for profit.

When Covid-19 hit, governments across North America passed legislation to protect nursing homes from lawsuits. The stain of corruption is obvious. Mike Harris was Premier of Ontario from 1995-2002. He was responsible for privatizing lolong-termare in Ontario. Now guess where he is. He is Vice President of long term care operations for Extendicare!

Jackie Brown researches how nursing home chains create high returns for investors. “Revera was purchased by the Public Sector Pension Investment Board. The Public Sector Pension Investment Board is actually a Federal Crown corporation that manages the pension funds of all federal civil servants and also some members of the military. What Revera is doing is essentially growing the pension savings, the retirement savings of federal civil servants by actually extracting money from the care provided to seniors.”

Revera does not report profits but the Public Sector Pension Investment Board, its parent company, reports annual profits of around $25 billion.

 Katha Fortier has been fighting for the rights of care workers for decades.

Ayesha Jabba, a social worker, at one of the companies, says, “if there was an individual with responsive behaviors and causing trouble, I had a lot of pressure to harass the families to change the facility…try to get them out, try to get them elsewhere. Try to pressure the families to agree to get them elsewhere. Even though families may be living close by and it’s convenient for them. My role was to try to pressure them into going to another facility and make it as appealing as possible to leave our facility and go elsewhere. Which made me very uncomfortable.”

There is only one part of the film that was inappropriate. Rai Reece writes about anti-black racism. Her contributions alleging racism have no place in this film. It’s not about racism and her presence and what she says detracts from the message and point of the film. I would have rated this 10/10, but her presence was so offensive that I downgraded it substantially.

I had a good friend who developed Parkinson’s Disease and bought his way into one of the best nursing homes in Southern California. He told me after he had been there for awhile that it was the worst decision he ever made.

This is a movie that everyone should see if they are considering going into a nursing home or committing a relative to one.

Tony Medley is an attorney, columnist, and MPAA-accredited film critic whose reviews and articles may be read in several newspapers and at rottentomatoes.com, CWEB.com, robinhoodnews.com, Movie Review Query Engine (mrqe.com), and at www.tonymedley.com. A former sports editor of the UCLA Daily Bruin, he is the author of four books, UCLA Basketball:The Real Story, Sweaty Palms: The Neglected Art of Being Interviewed, the first book ever written on the interview for the interviewee, having sold over a half million copies, and The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Bridge, which has sold over 100,000 copies, and Learn to Play Bridge Like a Boss. He is an American Contract Bridge League RubyLife Master and an ACBL accredited director. He is a Mensa Life Member and a member of the International Society of Philosophic Research, ISPE (“The Thousand”).

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