We desperately need action, not more inquiries, in the wake of the pandemic

“In this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes.” — Benjamin Franklin, 1789

With respect to the esteemed Mr. Franklin, in Canada there is a third certainty.

Call it the “inquiry industry.” It fires up in the wake of events of a certain notoriety and casts the searchlight of hindsight on whatever it is that went wrong.

This COVID-19 pandemic is destined to set a new national record for inquiries by judges, ombudspersons, public advocates, legislative committees, task forces and commissioners of one sort or another.

Some of the output of the inquiry industry will be useful.

Some will be redundant and some irrelevant.

And in some cases, inquiries will simply serve to stall the introduction of urgently needed reforms. Here two recent examples. Following the SARS outbreak that claimed 44 lives in Toronto in 2003, the Ontario government appointed Judge Archie Campbell to inquire into what went wrong and how to prevent a recurrence.

“Our public health and emergency infrastructures were in a sorry state of decay, starved for resources by governments of all three (Ontario) political parties,” the judge reported.

And what did the province do with his recommendations? Nothing — except perversely to hasten the decay of the infrastructures until they were overwhelmed by the coronavirus 17 years later

The second example is the case of

Elizabeth Wettlaufer, the ex-nurse who, undetected, murdered eight nursing home patients.

The provincial government appointed Judge Eileen Gillese to conduct the Long-Term Care Homes Public Inquiry to find out how Wettlaufer slipped through the cracks and to protect patients in the future.

Judge Gillese produced a 1,500page report last July. It contained 91 recommendations — all of which disappeared into someone’s drawer at Queen’s Park.

Is this to be fate of the four inquiries already launched or pending at the Ontario provincial level into the tragic inability of so many LTC homes to cope with COVID-19?

Do we really need to waste time on these or other LTC inquiries that are bound to be proposed?

Surely, we know enough to start acting.

We know that understaffing is a huge problem in LTC facilities in Ontario, as in other provinces. There is no reason why the province cannot establish — and enforce — staff/patient ratios. One registered nurse for every so many patients; same thing for registered practical nurses, personal support workers and orderlies.

We know it is almost impossible to prevent the spread of contagious disease when patients are packed in wards, two or four in one room and sharing one bathroom.

So insist all new nursing homes have single rooms for all patients and require existing homes to retrofit to that standard.

We have learned in Ontario, at least, that the safest LTC facilities are those operated by municipalities, followed by not-for-profit homes, with for-profit chains trailing

Do we really need to waste time on these or other LTC inquiries that are bound to be proposed? Surely, we know enough to start acting

dismally on the safety scale.

In British Columbia, the Seniors Advocate (a public official) pointed to some of factors in a report earlier this year — factors that would seem relevant to Ontario’s experience with the for-profit sector.

The Seniors Advocate found that B.C.’s for-profit homes spend an average of $10,000 less per patent per year on direct care than notfor-profit homes spend.

To look at it at different way, in fiscal 2017-18, for-profit B.C. homes turned an average profit of $7,091 per bed. That’s how 17 nursing homes in B.C. recorded profits in excess of $1 million — a feat made possible by paying staff in for-profit LTC homes an average of 17 per cent less than the industry standard.

We don’t need an inquiry to tell us that many at-risk workers in the LTC industry are underpaid.

We already know how to fix that — by legislating decent pay rates that operators must pay their PSWs and other employees.

A final note. As long as for-profit operators continue to receive government funding, should they not be required to open their books, every last entry, to enable the public to follow the money?

Cambridge resident Geoffrey Stevens, an author and former Ottawa columnist and managing editor of the Globe and Mail, teaches political science at the University of Guelph. His column appears Mondays. He welcomes comments at geoffstevens40@gmail.com.