Son seeks answers to mother's death through FOI

Son seeks answers to mother's death through FOI

Henry Schlogel is on a quest to solve what he describes as the puzzle of the Alberta health-care system - while seeking answers about the death of his elderly mother.

A photograph of Erna Schlogel taken at the Radway Continuing Care Centre last winter shows a healthy looking 92-year-old with a full-head of curly silver hair holding a small white dog. But within months of moving from a seniors lodge in Thorhild to nearby Radway, 88 km northeast of Edmonton, Erna was dead.

January 24 marks the first anniversary of her death and Schlogel, 63, says he's spent a frustrating year trying to get answers on everything from the treatment his mother was receiving when she slipped into a coma during a norwalk virus quarantine, why she was given the drug Zyprexa to control dementia when he says there have been warnings about its side-effects on the elderly and exactly how doctors billed his mother's health card for visits he believes never took place.

"Somebody is responsible for my mother's death," Schlogel said. "And I want those responsible to be held accountable."

Schlogel says he quickly became an unpopular figure at the Radway seniors' centre and the Aspen Regional Health Authority, which runs it, and has had little satisfaction from the colleges of physicians and pharmacists either. "The only way I can get information or access to her health records is by making Freedom of Information requests," he said.

Son wants answers to mother's death (Edmonton Sun, 6 January 2008)