Our treatment of the elderly is shameful

To say Canada has failed its elderly doesn’t begin to capture the extent of the wrong. Of all the realities forced on our attention as a result of the coronavirus pandemic, the alarming weaknesses of our care for the elderly is perhaps the most painful.

And shaming. Respect for seniors should be a principal element of any civilized society. Ensuring adequate care for those whose years rob them of the ability to fully look after themselves should be at the top of any priority list. There is no question that Canadians as individuals love and respect those who brought them into the world, raised them and fashioned a society founded in peace, prosperity and mutual respect. But somehow along the way we have neglected to ensure that admiration for the individual is translated into services and support for the group as a whole. It may be an exaggeration to say Canada’s approach to long-term care consists of warehousing the old and infirm, but we have certainly let standards decline to a point we should be ashamed to acknowledge.

The numbers tell the story. Theresa Tam, Canada’s chief public health officer, says almost half of all deaths from COVID-19 are now related to homes for the old and infirm. Ontario Premier Doug Ford acknowledged that, “despite our best efforts, we’re dealing with a wildfire at our longterm care homes.” At least three Ontario homes have seen more than 20 deaths, the most distressing case being that of the Pinecrest Nursing Home in the tiny community of Bobcaygeon, where 29 people have died in a facility of 65 beds in a town of just 3,500. In Quebec, 142 homes have had at least one case, and 41 have had serious outbreaks. Police have launched an investigation into Résidence Herron, where 31 of the 150 or so seniors died in a situation Premier François Legault suggested could entail “gross negligence.”

Authorities have begun to put in place new strictures to address the worst cases, but the need for such measures underlines the degree to which they had been overlooked or ignored previously. It’s not as if the dangers weren’t known, or warnings weren’t given. As has been pointed out, residences for the elderly are easy targets for the spread of virus, with large numbers of people with sustained medical needs packed close together in facilities with shared rooms, group eating facilities, long corridors and the continual need for supervision and assistance. Staffing in many cases is a constant struggle, with ongoing shortages, inadequate wages and loose regulations. Many care workers find themselves forced to juggle jobs at two or three facilities to make ends meet, unable to earn a decent living or find full-time employment in a single location. And none of this was unknown: there have been studies, inquiries, warnings and plenty of past experiences. A panel investigating the 2003 SARS outbreak recommended 70 per cent of health-care workers in any one home should be fulltime. “We knew this was a continuing problem,” said Dr. David Williams, Ontario’s chief medical officer of health.

So why was nothing done? It is easy to blame lack of resources, which means a lack of money. But it has been 17 years since the SARS crisis, with several other scares in between. During that period provinces have managed to find any number of new priorities towards which to direct funds. Ontario in particular spent much of the past two decades ramping up spending at record rates, paying for much of it with burgeoning annual deficits and a swelling debt. How is it that, of all that money, so little could be found to raise standards at homes for the elderly to a level that wouldn’t leave so many of us shocked and dismayed? When Ontario’s new Liberal leader, Steven Del Duca, called for an inquiry into the recent outbreaks, a New Democratic Party member responded archly that he should look to the 15 years of Liberal government during which the shortcomings took root.

By their very nature, people in care homes aren’t able to create the sort of noise required to attract the attention of governments. They are old people, confined to their beds, or dependent on walkers or wheelchairs to get around. They aren’t great at social networking, crowdsourcing or virtual campaigning. They are largely dependent on others, either relatives, medical professionals or care staff, for basic needs. Many of them, given the chance, would selflessly insist they don’t want to be a bother or a burden.

That is precisely why they need, and deserve, better than we’ve given them. There will be many demands for money in the wake of COVID-19, given how many deficiencies have been exposed. It will not be possible to meet them all, or even a large percentage, without a significant reordering of priorities and a shifting of resources to targets based more on need than public popularity. When that time comes, care for Canada’s infirm elderly must be at the very top of that list. They deserve it, and the people who devote themselves to looking after them on our behalf merit better pay and working conditions than they’ve been accorded. It’s a simple matter of duty and respect, both of which have been disregarded to far too great a degree.

IT’S NOT AS IF THE DANGERS WEREN’T KNOWN, OR WARNINGS WEREN’T

GIVEN.