{"id":16661,"date":"2021-04-08T16:09:49","date_gmt":"2021-04-08T20:09:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ontariohealthcoalition.ca\/?p=16661"},"modified":"2021-04-08T16:11:27","modified_gmt":"2021-04-08T20:11:27","slug":"long-term-care-residents-beg-to-go-outside-after-year-long-covid-19-confinement","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ontariohealthcoalition.ca\/index.php\/long-term-care-residents-beg-to-go-outside-after-year-long-covid-19-confinement\/","title":{"rendered":"Long-term care residents beg to go outside after year-long COVID-19 confinement"},"content":{"rendered":"

(March 30, 2021)<\/p>\n

By: Colin Perkel, The Canadian Press<\/p>\n

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Friends and family members of residents at Extendicare Guildwood in Toronto visit their loved ones through windows, on June 12, 2020.\u00a0(Evan Mitsui\/CBC)<\/em><\/p>\n

Residents of Ontario’s long-term care homes begged on Tuesday to be allowed outside, saying anti-pandemic restrictions that have confined them indoors for more than a year make no sense given almost all have now been vaccinated.<\/p>\n

Some compared their situations to solitary confinement, and urged the provincial government to act on what they called a gross violation of their basic human rights.<\/p>\n

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Chuck Ferkranus, a resident of a home in Newmarket, Ont., said no one in the building has COVID-19 and yet residents are stuck in their rooms. Ferkranus, who challenged those in authority to live as he does for even a week, said residents are being treated worse than criminals.<\/p>\n

“We did nothing wrong; we’re not guilty of any crime,” he said. “If vaccinations don’t end the rules, if no one having COVID doesn’t end the restrictions, then what does it take before this comes to an end?”<\/p>\n

Many of an estimated 150,000 nursing home residents have been confined to their rooms or floors for as long as 15 months now, cut off from most relatives as well as the outdoors. Activists blame extreme staffing shortages and operators who prioritize corporate needs ahead of the welfare of residents.<\/p>\n

Advocates also say the restrictions make no sense. Scientific evidence, they note, indicates COVID-19 is far less likely to spread outdoors than indoors.<\/p>\n

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Ontario nursing home residents have been confined to their rooms or floors for more than a year due to COVID-19 restrictions.\u00a0(AP)<\/em><\/p>\n

They also point to evidence that extreme isolation is physically and mentally damaging, especially to residents of nursing homes, many of whom suffer cognitive difficulties and need familiar faces and touch.<\/p>\n

“It just cannot go on like this; people are really suffering,” said Natalie Mehra, executive director of the Ontario Health Coalition. “We’re furious and we’re heartbroken.”<\/p>\n

Alfred Borg, another resident in Newmarket, said he hasn’t been allowed outside for more than a year or even had a shower for five or six months. Instead, he said, residents only get in-room sponge baths when even the law guarantees twice a week baths or showers.<\/p>\n

“All day long we just sit in our room,” Borg said. “Why are we being treated so much differently from everyone else? It is not enough just being alive. We need a better quality of life.”<\/p>\n

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