A downtown daycare facility in Sault Ste. Marie that sparked outrage after a three-year-old boy was found with a random, partially chewed pill in his mouth continues to face mounting criticism amid allegations of questionable practices.
A former cook at The Orchard Children’s Centre claims she was fired from the daycare at the Etienne Brule school this past September after reporting safety concerns to the Ministry of Education — on the heels of an incident where a two-year-old child sustained minor burns to both hands after handling a hot oven rack while unsupervised.
Karen Davis says she had just finished serving lunch to the kids at the daycare on Sept. 27 when she was called into the director’s office and informed that a “business decision” had been made to abruptly let her go.
“I don’t believe I was let go because of work ethic — it was because I wouldn’t stop questioning whether or not there should be some changes made to the room that I worked in, so it would be safe for the kids to play in as well,” she said.
SooToday has confirmed that Claire Laframboise, a two-year-old who lives with autism, is the child who burned her hands at The Orchard on the morning of Sept. 10. Coincidentally, the young girl also happens to be the sister of Brent, the three-year-old boy who was recently found in the playground chewing on a pill he had discovered on the ground while being cared for by staff at The Orchard.
'Why the f--- didn't you call 911?' Dad furious after son eats pill at Sault daycare
Davis says that on the morning of the oven incident, she saw a staff member looking after a number of children in a playroom — where the kitchen also happens to be located — while she was busy working at a second oven. That’s when she heard another caregiver shout, ‘Claire, oven door!’
“Claire is standing there with both her hands shaking — she’s upset, she’s distressed. Both her hands are red. Her fingertips, everything, is red,” Davis recalled.
“She got past the child caregiver, past the child gate, opened the oven door and pulled the oven rack completely out of the oven with both her hands.”
Davis says she had turned on the oven and set it to 400 degrees about five minutes before the incident took place. “That caregiver is still not doing anything. I was the one that took Claire, brought her around to get the ice packs — the caregiver that was supposed to be watching for her didn’t say or do anything,” she said.
A caregiver was trying to calm Laframboise down while Davis applied ice packs to her hands. The former cook says she wanted to break out the first did kit in order to provide medical attention, but was advised by staff that she couldn’t do that unless the parents were contacted first.
“I’m like, ‘well, then call the parents.’ There was some hesitation for them to call,” she said, adding that honey was eventually applied to the child’s hands in order to soothe the burns after obtaining permission from her parents.
The next day, Davis says she was informed by the daycare's director that an incident report had been filled out, the parents had signed off on it, and that “nothing further needed to happen.” The former cook found that “very difficult to accept,” and continued to press the director for days about the safety concerns that arose from the incident.
“I wasn’t getting anywhere — she wasn’t making any changes,” said Davis. “That’s when I called the Ministry of Education and lodged a complaint.”
When Davis made her boss aware of the complaint to the ministry, she says it “motivated her to look around the room and see what might be changed.”
“She showed up with one strap for the oven door to keep it from opening,” Davis recalled. “I pointed out to her that there were two ovens in the kitchen area — like, take this seriously, please.”
Davis says that while renovations to the area were being made in accordance with recommendations from the Ministry of Education, she was fired before she was able to see the end result. She alleges the daycare “did the cheapest thing they could,” by not installing a proper child gate, which she believes contributed to Laframboise burning her tiny hands.
“The child gate was completely useless. It wasn’t secure — it was just sort of wedged between a bookshelf and the oven and the wall,” Davis said. “At the same time, the caregivers are going in and out of that child gate to get the laundry and whatnot, and they’re not necessarily taking the time that they need to close it properly, so that a child can’t actually open it.”
Valeria Aramburu, director of The Orchard Children’s Centre, has yet to respond to a request for comment made by SooToday Thursday.
Laframboise’s father, meanwhile, is struggling to find a daycare with openings after pulling both her and her brother out of The Orchard earlier this month.
“Routine is one of the biggest things with them, and their routines are completely off,” Brent Robinson told SooToday during an interview Thursday. “They’re going off the walls right now. They don’t have their friends.”
Robinson has documented and submitted a number of past incidents involving both his kids to the Children’s Aid Society of Algoma. He firmly believes the downtown daycare facility is woefully understaffed and unequipped to take care of children with special needs.
“They shouldn’t be open until they get better management, or better staffing,” he said.