A long-term care facility in Dollard-des-Ormeaux is appealing a judge's decision to not allow video cameras in patients' rooms.

The idea behind the cameras was to try to ensure quality patient care, but the union filed a grievance after employees at the nursing home complained.

The dispute began last year after a patient's son placed a video camera in his mother's room at the CHSLD Vigi Sante on Thornhill St. The woman had Parkinson's disease. He said he used the camera to monitor his mother, not the staff.

Management at the facility allowed the camera to be installed. Employees were made aware and subsequently protested to their union, saying that it was a violation of their privacy.

The Quebec Service Employees’ Union took the matter to Quebec Superior Court, and on Aug. 3, the judge ruled in the union's favour.

The facility must present evidence that video surveillance is necessary for an investigation before installing them, explained union vice-president Danielle Legault.

“Having a camera on you, day in and day out, every minute of the time you do your work, for us if there's no probable cause, it's unreasonable, to be checked every day of every minute of what you do. To someone, it's a stress on the person,” said Legault.

This isn't the first time the use of video cameras in long-term care facilities has been argued before the courts, and in fact another decision from a 2010 case contradicts the ruling against the DDO facility.

Medical lawyer Jean-Pierre Menard cited a decision from March 2010 when a judge ruled that employees working in a long-term care facility don't have the same right to privacy in a patient’s room that they would elsewhere.

The ruling stated it was up to the patient to decide if a surveillance camera be can placed inside their room.

Menard also cited a letter from Quebec’s Public Protection Ombudsman from April of this year confirming the patient's right to decide on video surveillance.

“We are in a period of time in which the level of services in the long-term facility care has decreased, there are fewer and fewer employees and people are more aware of what can happen. It's a new way to improve the level of surveillance that the patients are entitled to,” said Menard.

Francine Charbonneau, the minister responsible for seniors, would not comment on this particular case but did say the government is awaiting results from a provincial committee on ethics in elder care.

The appeal process launched by the long-term care facility in DDO begins next month.