{"id":15830,"date":"2021-01-12T19:54:41","date_gmt":"2021-01-13T00:54:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ontariohealthcoalition.ca\/?p=15830"},"modified":"2021-01-14T19:56:36","modified_gmt":"2021-01-15T00:56:36","slug":"levy-second-wave-ignites-humanitarian-crisis-in-long-term-care-homes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ontariohealthcoalition.ca\/index.php\/levy-second-wave-ignites-humanitarian-crisis-in-long-term-care-homes\/","title":{"rendered":"LEVY: Second wave ignites ‘humanitarian crisis’ in long-term care homes"},"content":{"rendered":"
(January 11, 2021)<\/p>\n
By: Sue-Ann Levy, Toronto Sun<\/p>\n
It\u2019s been like a runaway train in Ontario long-term care homes.<\/p>\n
Despite the numerous press conferences hosted by Premier Doug Ford and his senior ministers over the past few months promising changes to address the concerns raised by the Canadian military last May, the second wave has ripped through long-term care (LTC) facilities yet again, with all the same issues under the microscope.<\/p>\n
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It has proven to be deadlier this second time, maintains Vivian Stamatopoulos, an associate teaching prof at Ontario Tech University.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere are more long-term care homes in outbreak now than ever before and the outbreaks are far deadlier, with 10 homes right now battling outbreaks with over 150 infected residents and staff,\u201d she said late last week.<\/span><\/p>\n
Natalie Mehra, executive director of the Ontario Health Coalition, calls it a \u201chumanitarian crisis.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/picture><\/figure>\n
Heads should have rolled long ago \u2014 particularly that of Long-Term Care Minister Merrilee Fullerton, who continues to downplay the seriousness of the situation in interviews and on social media.<\/p>\n
Her press secretary Krystle Caputo told me late last week that since the pandemic began, the Ford government has invested nearly $1.4 billion dollars to ensure homes have the resources to battle the virus \u2014 including enhanced testing, improved prevention, containment procedures and minor capital improvements.<\/p>\n
She said they\u2019ve also taken action to address urgent staff shortages and to enable the deployment of hospital staff to problem homes.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have seen how quickly this virus spreads and (how) community transmission is still a threat to long-term care homes,\u201d Caputo said.<\/p>\n
That notwithstanding, it is clear the government has lost the plot.<\/p>\n
According to figures provided by the province, and updated Sunday morning, there are 245 LTC homes in outbreak. That\u2019s nearly 40% of all LTC homes in the province.<\/p>\n
In the past four weeks alone, while I was off grieving the death of my own dad to the deadly virus, the number of cases skyrocketed by 4,509 or 130%, according to Ontario Health Coalition (OHC) figures.<\/p>\n
In early September, there were only three active COVID cases among LTC residents and 18 among staff. As Friday, there were nearly 8,000 in total.<\/p>\n
Tendercare in Scarborough \u2014 privately owned and managed by Extendicare \u2014 has lost 73 residents or almost one-third of its resident population in the second wave. The home has had 188 resident\u00a0 and staff COVID cases to date. North York General hospital finally stepped in around Christmas.<\/p>\n
At St. George Care Community in downtown Toronto, a Sienna Senior Living home, some 97 or 140 residents tested positive for COVID-19 and 17 have died. Another 82 staff tested positive.<\/p>\n
This past week, University Health Network was brought in to manage a situation I first heard about in early December, once again far too late.<\/p>\n
According to a statement issued by UHN Sunday, there have been no additional positive cases in the past 24 hours and six leaders from UHN are contributing expertise and \u201con the ground oversight.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mehra says the conditions in the homes are \u201cworse than ever.\u201d<\/p>\n
Homes have no front-line staff, having lost a lot of staff in the first wave. The province has \u201cdone nothing\u201d to recruit new staff to get them in place in preparation for the second wave \u2014 and there is no care or infection control without proper staff.<\/p>\n
\u201cEven if we were to vaccinate everyone tomorrow, the humanitarian crisis would continue because there\u2019s not enough staff to feed and bathe people,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Stamatopoulos agrees. She says the root cause of many of the deadliest outbreaks \u2014 including Tendercare and St. George\u2013 can be traced to \u201cpreventable error\u201d and \u201cstaff shortages.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Adding to the death count is the lack of proactive crisis response to assist these homes before the outbreak gets out of hand, says Stamatopoulos. Only when the house is figuratively on fire are local hospitals sent in for help.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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The buck stops with the Ford government, says Mehra. She says she\u2019s given up on Fullerton because all she is doing is \u201cdenying there is a problem.\u201d<\/div>\n
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Community spread is so high, it is hard to prevent people from unwittingly bringing the virus into homes. Increasing surveillance testing, as the province has done, is fantastic but the test only reflects the situation on the day the test was taken, Mehra says.<\/div>\n
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When a case is missed, proper protection measures should come into play. But she says the measures put in place to protect people against the virus and to contain the spread are \u201ccompletely ineffective\u201d and \u201cnot enforced.\u201d<\/div>\n
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She adds despite the provincial promises to beef up staffing and to increase pandemic pay, no measures have been put in place and no money has flowed.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Mehra said COVID-19 may not have been completely stopped but there\u2019s \u201cno question\u201d many thousands of lives could have been saved by \u201cstemming the spread\u201d very quickly.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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\u201cI\u2019m furious that this government will not take what is in their power to solve this,\u201d she said.\u00a0 \u201cThey\u2019re leaving the people in the homes to die.\u201d<\/div>\n