Only some voices seem to get attention

Good for the armed forces, but others have been flagging issues in care homes for years, Susan Mintzberg says.

Thank you, Canadian Armed Forces, for sounding the alarm. And thank you, politicians, for your heartfelt responses. It’s about time that we exposed how dreadfully we care for seniors in this country.

But wait, why does this sound familiar? Perhaps because front-line workers, family caregivers and patient advocates have been warning about this situation for years! How interesting that the military, who has been helping out in long-term care facilities for only a few weeks, has become the voice that the government has chosen to hear.

As this pandemic drags on, we are collectively feeling weary. Two months in and there are still many unknowns, much concern and plenty of emotion. Coexisting with COVID-19 is new to everyone and feeling unsettled has become a daily reality. Yet, I experienced a novel sense of frustration in hearing the reactions of political leaders, at the federal and provincial level, when news broke of the damning reports put out by the Canadian military about the conditions they had witnessed in seniors’ long termcare facilities.

That these findings made headlines and that government officials are now promising action is certainly good news. That the premiers of Ontario and Quebec reacted respectively with apparent astonishment and complacency is unbelievable. It’s difficult to choose which was worse: Doug Ford’s over-the-top reaction about being appalled and disgusted at what he had found out when he read the report or François Legault’s admission of the known and long-standing conditions, which he acknowledged existed prior to the pandemic as a result of ongoing staffing shortage.

When it comes to fixing the imbalances in society, the top rarely listens to the bottom.

Either way, both responses are shameful. For a premier to claim having no knowledge of a situation that has existed for years is as damning as admitting awareness while allowing the problems to persist. Nonetheless, they echoed Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s declaration that “we need to do a better job of taking care of our elders in long-term care facilities,” Ford promising “accountability and justice” in Ontario and Legault a “massive campaign” to recruit 10,000 orderlies in Quebec.

Although the future of long-term care may be uncertain, it is now clear whose voice matters when the stakes are high. We have spent weeks acknowledging and honouring the heroes of this pandemic, our front-line workers on the ground, many whom have dedicated their lives to helping vulnerable and marginalized populations, often with minimal support and investment from those at the top. These are the essential workers, until recently invisible in our hierarchical system, who for years have warned of the deplorable conditions in seniors’ facilities. Yet their frequent pleas to improve the situation have consistently been ignored.

We live in a world that is ruled by the elite; those with the power, the fancy job titles, the big bank accounts. When it comes to fixing the imbalances in society, the top rarely listens to the bottom. Now here we are in a world upside down, where workers whose voices we routinely fail to hear march us toward safety, while the establishment scrambles to regain control from the sidelines.

In the midst of this new normal, the military arrives, observes the shortcomings of our system, produces a report, and suddenly jaws are dropping, promises are flying, and we awaken to a situation that the heroes of this pandemic have been exposing for decades. As we finally begin to publicly acknowledge the failure to carefully protect our senior citizens, let’s cut out the political charade, admit that we need to be listening more broadly, and get on with the changes that those on the ground have been seeking/requesting for so long.