EXCERPTS:
A toddler died early Monday evening at a home daycare in Vaughan that has since failed a health inspection and been forced to close, the Star has learned.
Paramedics were called to the unlicensed daycare at 5:25 p.m. Monday and found a 2-year-old without vital signs, said Colleen Gareau, communications manager for York Region Community and Health Services.
Efforts to revive the toddler were unsuccessful and the child was pronounced dead at the scene, Gareau said.
A cause of death has yet to be determined.
The daycare was ordered to shut down by a coroner on the scene Monday. As an unlicensed centre, the home is only allowed to host five children under the age of 10 who aren't part of the operator's family. There were 27 children there Monday evening, according to health officials. It was not known if all the children were attending the day-care centre.
The daycare also failed an initial health inspection by York Region officials, who found "health hazards relating to food safety and infection prevention" at the home, said Gareau.
Since the daycare hosted children whose parents live in Toronto, Toronto Public Health has stepped in to keep them updated on an ongoing coroner's investigation into how the toddler died, said spokesperson Jennifer Veenboer.
"The public health labs have been asked to expedite the samples" taken during an autopsy on the child, said Veenboer.
"If it's an infectious disease, so that other children don't get sick, we will take the appropriate action," Veenboer said, citing the possibility of vaccines and infection prevention measures. "It really depends on what the cause of death was."
The two-storey brick house at 343 Yellowood Circle., near Hwy. 407 and Dufferin St., was dark and seemingly empty Tuesday night. The front porch was cordoned off with yellow police tape, which had been removed by Wednesday morning.
Neighbours described how several police cruisers, ambulances and fire trucks filled their cul-de-sac Monday night. Two city buses were brought in to "clear the scene, because the location had quite a few children there," said York Regional Police Insp. Greg Harper.
Neither police nor health officials would confirm the gender of the deceased toddler, but Gareau said the child lived in Toronto.
Harper said no charges have been laid in the case, and that police will proceed once a cause of death is determined.
"We don't know what happened yet," he said.
-reprinted from the Toronto Star
RELATED LINKS:
Vaughan daycare where tot died warned last year for overcrowding, Toronto Star, 10 Jul 13