A Saskatchewan woman is calling for changes to private care home regulations after she says her grandpa froze to death outside his Saskatoon home.

Ashley Benson Bonneville said on the morning of Feb. 4 she received a call that her grandfather, 96-year-old William Hastie, had unexpectedly died.

Benson Bonneville said the coroner’s report shows Hastie’s cause of death was a heart attack caused by hypothermia.

“My grandpa paid money to live in a care home where he should have been taken care of. And instead of dying warm in his bed, he died frozen outside,” she told media during a visit to the Legislative Building.

According to the Government of Saskatchewan’s website, care homes are typically inspected annually.

Records show the Northern Lights Care Home, where Hastie was living, hadn’t been inspected for three and a half years.

The care home was last inspected in March, a month after Hastie died. Before that, it was inspected in July of 2021. The reported cited several health and safety violations related to sanitation of bathrooms, infection control, and how medication is administered.

NDP seniors critic Keith Jorgenson says they wrote a letter to the provincial government last July expressing concerns over the Northern Lights Care Home.

“The government has not been doing assessments of patients in personal care homes as required by law. This is an incredibly important step because that allows us to know that that facility is capable of caring for the people that reside in it,” Jorgenson told media.

During Question Period on Tuesday, Minister of Seniors Lori Carr said she hasn’t seen the letter because she wasn’t the minister at the time, but said she takes the concerns seriously.

Carr said the coroner’s office is investigating Hastie’s case and the ministry is awaiting the final report.

“We will continue to look into what happened and take action appropriate,” Carr said.

She said all care homes in the province currently have an up to date review.

Benson Bonneville said safety standards for private care homes need to be enforced to prevent this from happening again.

“Nothing can change what happened to my grandpa, but I really hope going forward that there could be changes made so no other family has to deal with this,” she said.

CTV News reached a staff member at Northern Lights Care Home over the phone, but the conversation was cut short. Requests for a follow-up conversation went unanswered.

The care home has previously told CTV News Hastie was out on a walk when he slipped on ice.