Some families feel that private surveillance cameras in long-term care homes could help ease concerns about their loved ones.

In 2009 we learned about the story of Janet Brumell, who had placed a hidden camera in her mother's room at the Longworth Retirement Residence in London, Ont.

It caught her mother, 88-year-old Jean Holden, falling to the ground, an event the family would not have known about without the camera.

However, when the facility learned about the camera, the family was ordered to remove it.

But so-called ‘granny cams' have been useful in catching abuse in the past, as was the case at a Brantford retirement home in 2002.

Security camera footage led to a worker at the Charlotte Villa Retirement Residence pleading guilty to assault and theft.

Brummel, who remains outraged after being asked to remove the camera, began lobbying for the use of cameras in long-term care homes if a resident or their decision-maker is concerned about abuse or neglect.

Brummel says "Hopefully the Minister of Health can be sympathetic to the cause."

She and Betty Miller, head of Senior Guardian Angels, were optimistic after meeting with Ontario Health and Long-Term Care Minister Deb Matthews in June 2010.

At the time Matthews asked the Information and Privacy Commissioner to take a look at these issues to provide some guidance.

In June 2010 the commissioner said there was no opposition to the use of cameras, provided certain considerations were addressed.

But despite promises a privacy assessment would be completed by the end of 2010, it hasn't been done yet. Matthews says "We haven't met that but we are working very hard to get it done as quickly as we can."

Kitchener-Waterloo MPP Elizabeth Witmer, herself a former minister of health and long-term care, says "I'm disappointed that the minister did not make this a priority because I know that she did make a commitment that there would be a decision made by the end of the year."

The main concern, according to the provincial government, is not the privacy of the individual, but the privacy of others involved.

Matthews says "Those are not the only people who would be captured on those cameras. So that's the issue that the privacy commissioner is helping us get through."

A year after Brummel launched her fight, she says she feels "like beating my head against the wall, the government is like an onion, with layers, advisors, senior advisors, deputy ministers."

She's not the only one hoping for a resolution soon, Witmer says "either say yes or say no, but let's make the decision."