(September 18, 2020)<\/p>\n
By: Sherina Harris, HuffPost Canada<\/p>\n
Christine Collins\u2019 brother Peter tested positive for\u00a0COVID-19<\/a><\/span> less than a month after he was transferred from a hospital to Carlingview Manor in Ottawa. He was supposed to be in isolation upon arriving at the long-term care home, but on the dementia floor where he lived, residents wandered around without distancing, she said.<\/p>\n The home, where 61 residents have died during the pandemic, was very short staffed, Collins added. She was told the shower room was closed during the outbreak because there were not enough staff members to sanitize it between uses.<\/p>\n She said she \u201ccompletely blame[s]\u201d the home for Peter testing positive. Now, months later, he still has symptoms like severe migraines and shortness of breath. Collins visits her brother once a week, outside, but doesn\u2019t feel safe going inside the home.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m not sure,\u201d Collins said at a town hall this week, \u201cbut maybe you can imagine how very angry and horrified I am to find out that my pension that I paid into for 37 years, owns Carlingview Manor as part of the Revera chain.\u201d<\/p>\n As the country barrels toward a second wave of COVID-19 and\u00a0new outbreaks emerge<\/a><\/span><\/span>\u00a0in Ontario long-term care homes, experts and members of the Ottawa Health Coalition are calling for the federal government to immediately take action to take Revera Inc. public.<\/p>\n The Public Service Alliance of Canada (PSAC) has 140,000 members\u2019 pensions invested with PSP Investments,\u00a0a federal agency that manages pensions for federal employees, the RCMP and Canadian Armed Forces.\u00a0PSP presently owns a 100 per cent stake Revera.<\/p>\n Next week, the PSAC will formally present a proposal to make Revera public when leaders from the PSP Investment board meet with pension advisory committees, it said in a press release.<\/p>\n The Ottawa Health Coalition held a town hall Wednesday night, where speakers urged the federal government to take action and make Revera, and other long-term care homes in the country, public.<\/p>\n “I would argue that the pandemic … is the best argument for why this is now necessary” – Kevin Skerrett<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n Revera is the second-largest long-term care provider in Canada. It currently faces several lawsuits for its\u00a0response to the pandemic<\/a><\/span>, including one that accuses the company of being \u201csystemically negligent\u201d in caring for residents, leading to COVID-19-related deaths.<\/p>\n Larry Roberts, a Revera spokesperson, said he could not comment on the lawsuits facing Revera as they are before the courts.<\/p>\n \u201cThe staff at Carlingview Manor have worked very hard, in conjunction with Ottawa Public Health and local hospitals, to provide safe, compassionate care to our residents throughout this unprecedented pandemic,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n A spokesperson for PSP Investments said PSP and Revera are committed to engaging with all levels of government and other stakeholders regarding continual improvements in long-term care.<\/p>\n \u201cWe believe that by working together to positively influence the LTC sector for the benefit of seniors, we can be part of the solution,\u201d the spokesperson said.<\/p>\n Jean-Yves Duclos, president of the treasury board, said in May that PSP\u00a0operates independently<\/a><\/span>\u00a0from the government.<\/p>\n To say the government is powerless is \u201cnonsense,\u201d said Kevin Skerrett, a senior research officer assigned to pensions at the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE),at the town hall.<\/p>\n \u201cIf a federal government did decide that this is a problem, and that a change is necessary, it would be a very straightforward change to intervene,\u201d he said, adding it would likely require a regulatory or legislative change.<\/p>\n \u201cI would argue that the pandemic and the tragedy that we\u2019ve just been through is the best argument for why this is now necessary and urgently required,\u201d Skerrett said.<\/p>\n In May, the president of the PSAC wrote a letter to the pension plan\u2019s CEO asking for his office to initiate consultations immediately to transition management of Revera operations to provincial health authorities.<\/p>\n The Ontario Health Coalition has found at least\u00a021 legal actions<\/a><\/span>\u00a0relating to conditions in the province\u2019s long-term care homes. Two class actions are directly against Revera, and one is specifically against Carlingview Manor, the Ottawa long-term care home owned by the company.<\/p>\n There\u2019s legal precedence that plan fund managers must invest in the best interest of their members without undue risk, said James Infantino, the national pension and disability insurance officer for the PSAC.<\/p>\n “Who is Revera accountable to?” – James Infantino<\/span><\/p>\n It could be argued, he said, that PSP Investments is breaching the fiduciary duty to manage investments in the best interest of its members. But he noted that PSP divesting from Revera, without any changes to make the company public, wouldn\u2019t change the situation for residents in long-term care.<\/p>\n Infantino said the PSAC has raised concerns about Revera in the past, such as in 2018 when CTV ran an\u00a0investigative broadcast<\/a><\/span>\u00a0focused on \u201chorrendous neglect\u201d in Revera homes.<\/p>\n \u201cWho is Revera accountable to?\u201d he asked. \u201cThey don\u2019t have to file financial statements to anybody, and yet they operate in this manner, and yet they\u2019re funded by our pension funds.\u201d<\/p>\n Data analysis by the Toronto Star found residents in for-profit facilities are about\u00a0twice as likely<\/span>\u00a0<\/a>to contract COVID-19 and die from it than residents in a nonprofit home.<\/p>\n There are \u201cmajor problems\u201d with work and care conditions in Canadian long-term care homes, and especially in for-profit homes, said Amanda Vyce, CUPE\u2019s national health-care researcher.<\/p>\n For-profit operators minimize staffing costs by having fewer staff, paying lower wages, providing fewer benefits and offering less job security. They also have fewer staff with formal qualifications, Vyce said, which is associated with having a lower quality of care.<\/p>\n Low staffing levels can also mean high workloads which, paired with low wages, can cause staff turnover, she added.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen revenues generated by for-profit homes are allocated to shareholder profits, rather than improvements to staffing levels, working conditions and therefore resident care, it is not surprising that quality of care suffers,\u201d Vyce said.<\/p>\n Ontario\u2019s\u00a0long-term care staffing study<\/a><\/span>, released in July, found 50 per cent of personal support workers (PSWs) stay in the health-care sector for fewer than five years, and 43 per cent leave because of the burnout from working in short-staffed facilities. The highest turnover in the sector is from part-time and casual workers, who are predominantly entry-level PSWs, the study states.<\/p>\n Anil Naidoo, the national representative at the National Union of Public and General Employees (NUPGE), called the situation in long-term care a \u201ccollective stain\u201d on Canada.<\/p>\n He pointed to a\u00a0NUPGE poll\u00a0<\/a><\/span>from May that suggested 86 per cent of Canadians are in favour of including long-term care facilities under the Canada Health Act and an Angus Reid survey that found\u00a0two-thirds of Canadians<\/a><\/span>\u00a0want the government to take over long-term care facilities.<\/p>\n Naidoo emphasized that long-term care workers are also in an \u201cimpossible situation\u201d trying to care for residents without support and, in some cases, without adequate personal protective equipment.<\/p>\n \u201cMoney is thrown at the problem, but really in effect, only ends up propping up the for-profit sector that should be \u2026\u00a0 taken back into the public hands,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\u2018Nonsense\u2019 to say government is powerless<\/h3>\n
Staffing concerns in for-profit homes<\/h3>\n