The Ontario government is investigating the case of an 82-year-old grandfather whose body decomposed in his Toronto retirement home when nobody noticed he was not showing up for his meals.Roy Gillett was dead from a heart attack and decomposing in his bed for at least three days — his family believes it was five days — before his body was discovered on May 23, 2017, at the Bill McMurray Residence. A fellow resident asked the home to check on Roy after she noticed his absence from the home’s common dining room.That’s when he was found, sheets pulled up to his neck, his body rotting and bloated, according to a coroner’s report. The Star published the story of the granddad and his outraged family this week.On Friday, Ontario’s Seniors Affairs minister, Dipika Damerla, told the Star she will work alongside the industry regulator, the Retirement Homes Regulatory Authority, to find out why the home didn’t thoroughly check on Roy when it had been alerted to his absence.In a statement, Damerla said she will “make sure they (the regulator) use all the powers provided to them under the Retirement Homes Act to determine the exact details of the case, what went wrong and make the necessary inquiries to ensure this does not happen again.”Roy’s son, Rick, 50, welcomed Damerla’s promise of a proper investigation but stressed the family’s goal in telling their story is to make sure it doesn’t happen to anyone else — including residents in other homes.The issue, Gillett said, is not that their father died in bed from a heart attack, but that no one from the home checked on him before his body had turned into a mess.“I’m glad to see that something will be done; I just hope it’s enough,” Rick said. “How long will it take to make sure this doesn’t happen again?”The retirement home had said it did nothing wrong because its residents live independently and sta ...
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