![\"Natalie\u00a0Mehra,\u00a0Ontario\u00a0Health\u00a0Coalition\u00a0executive](\"https:\/\/smartcdn.prod.postmedia.digital\/nexus\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/0323-sm-a1-probe.jpeg?quality=90&strip=all&w=288\")
<\/p>\n\u201cLong-term care is just one component of this crisis. COVID-19 has shone a harsh light on Ontario health-care systemic discrimination in treatment of the elderly,\u201d Webb told a Zoom press conference Monday morning, attended by the Sault Star.<\/p>\n<\/section>\n
The acuity level of long-term care residents has risen \u201cdramatically\u201d over the years without a corresponding increase in funding for care, Webb said.<\/p>\n
\u201cResidents are now more medically frail and complex and a higher proportion than ever before, around 80 per cent, have some kind of cognitive impairment,\u201d he said, adding the challenges of dealing with behavioural issues are compounded by a lack of staffing.<\/p>\n
The result is residents being left in soiled diapers, not being taken to the washroom when they ask or they need to and being left in beds \u201cfor hours.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIf this were a day care, and if these were children, these facilities would be shut down in a heartbeat,\u201d Webb said. \u201cYet, for seniors, little is done to ensure positive change, giving us no wonder people fear long-term care.\u201d<\/p>\n
Advocacy Centre for the Elderly receives \u201ca lot of \u201c calls from Sault Ste. Marie and Algoma District families regarding elderly relatives being, what they believe is, inappropriately discharged from hospital, as well as long-term care concerns.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe list never ends,\u201d he said. \u201cThankfully, (the Sault and Algoma) have been spared the worst of COVID-19, but it has not been spared the worst of discrimination for health care against older adults in Ontario.\u201d<\/p>\n
In Sault Ste. Marie alone, wait times for long-term care homes range from 124 days to 2,088 days (5.7 years) and an average of 16 people move into long-term each month, says Ontario Health Coalition. There were, as of February, 349 people on the wait-list.<\/p>\n
Sault Area Hospital, says OHC director Natalie Mehra, routinely runs at more than 100 per cent capacity. Patients are \u201ccrowded\u201d into emergency rooms, creating \u201cenormous pressure\u201d for the elderly to be transferred out to wherever space can be found, \u201ceven to inappropriate or unsafe places,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThese pleas from the elderly can no longer fall on deaf ears,\u201d Mehra said.<\/p>\n
Sault Area Hospital says it works on an ongoing basis with its community health-care partners to \u201censure\u201d it is able to care for patients in the \u201cmost appropriate spaces,\u201d either in hospital or in the community, depending on the needs of the patient.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have been incredibly diligent in this work over the past year to ensure the hospital is in readiness to manage a surge in COVID-19 cases while we are continuing to care for patients safely,\u201d SAH manager of communications Brandy Sharp Young told he Sault Star.<\/p>\n
Since Labour Day, SAH\u2019s occupancy has been 90 per cent.<\/p>\n \u201cSupporting older adults to live in the best place possible is a commitment from SAH to our patients and their families,\u201d Sharp Young said, adding SAH collaborates with its patients and community partners to ensure that patients are in the \u201cmost appropriate\u201d place for care and \u201cwe work together to transition patients when suitable.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/section>\n Mehra urges residents here to send long-term care concerns to the province as well as lobby the Ontario Human Rights Commission to conduct the probe.<\/p>\n \u201cThere is responsibility to be seen at the facility level, no question,\u201d Mehra said. \u201cBut there is also a systemic ageism in our system that treats the elderly as if their lives are less meaningful and as though their right to care is somehow lesser than others. And that must be challenged, particularly in the face of the horrors we\u2019ve seen over the last year.\u201d<\/p>\n In Ontario, only a small percentage of long-term care residents with COVID-19 were hospitalized prior to their deaths, OHC said, citing a recent study that found only 22.4 per cent LTC residents, who died with COVID-19, were hospitalized. This compares to 81.4 per cent people who lived in the community.<\/p>\n \u201cWhile individual care needs, no doubt, precluded hospitalization for some, there is no escaping the horrible truth that thousands of long-term care residents were left to die, many of them with woefully inadequate care and many without family until the very end, if even then,\u201d Mehra told the news conference.<\/p>\n Adriel Weaver, a lawyer with Goldblatt Partners, said it is \u201cvery strongly\u201d in the public interest that an inquiry be convened, the sooner the better.<\/p>\n \u201cThe COVID-19 crisis has made it all too apparent the existing inequity in access to health care for elderly Ontarians,\u201d Weaver told the news conference. \u201cIn particular, it\u2019s brought much-needed public attention to the deeply disturbing conditions within long-term care facilities, which Ontario seniors have endured for far too long.\u201d<\/p>\n Weaver said that although Ontario\u2019s Long-Term\u00a0Care\u00a0COVID-19 Commission\u00a0is underway \u2014 which, she said, is doing \u201cvital work\u201d \u2014 immediate answers to a more \u201cnarrow set of questions\u201d are needed now.<\/p>\n \u201cThe factors that underlie the deplorable conditions within some long-term care facilities cannot be meaningfully resolved without naming and addressing systemic age-based discrimination in the provision of health care in the province,\u201d Weaver said.<\/p>\n In Ontario, more than 2,200 mostly elderly people deemed alternate level of care (ALC) patients \u201coften derisively referred to as bed blockers,\u201d were offloaded from hospitals into makeshift sites, says Michael Hurley, Ontario Council of Hospital Unions (OCHU\/CUPE) president.<\/p>\n These patients, Hurley said, who may have multiple complex chronic medical conditions, are moved to non-hospital sites and, in some cases, hotels, where staffing levels and care are lower.<\/p>\n But elderly patients in Ontario were denied health-care access \u201clong before the pandemic,\u201d Hurley said.<\/p>\n \u201cThey were often lied to about services to which they (were) entitled, and taken advantage of at moments of extreme vulnerability,\u201d he told the press conference.<\/p>\n \u201c(Such discrimination) shortens the lifespans of many productive and happy and beloved members of our society.\u201d<\/p>\n Over the last three decades, as the population grew by 4.5 million and aged, Ontario governments have pursued the most \u201cradical\u201d hospital downsizing of any province in Canada, cutting 20,000 hospital beds, the groups say. At the same time, the province rationed access to long-term care, resulting in a wait-list of more than 38,000 mostly elderly Ontarians.<\/p>\n Weaver said it\u2019s not as if the government is passing laws that target the elderly or \u201covertly\u201d state the lives and well-being of seniors are less worthy.<\/p>\n \u201cBut it is comprehensively crafting policy that has a disproportionate, negative impact on elderly Ontarians,\u201d she said. \u201cThe policies, in concert, are working in such a way that the elderly bear the brunt of the cuts to hospital care and long-term care.\u201d<\/p>\n