ALARM BELLS Concerns are growing once again over the conditions at Canada’s long-term-care homes
Paul urges a national inquiry on long-term care in Canada
Politicians, advocates and public health officials were ringing the alarm Thursday over COVID-19’s impact on long-termcare homes, as Ontarians got fresh projections of how the virus is expected to spread.
Green Party Leader Annamie Paul urged a national inquiry on long-term care in Canada and said the first thing that should be done is for Ottawa to add long-term care to the Canada Health Act.
Pa u l , w h o has said she couldn’t visit her father before he died from a non-COVID infection in a long-term-care home in May, said the pandemic has just proven how broken and inadequate the system is.
“If we have arrived at a situation where we need to call in the Canadian Armed Forces and the Red Cross, which is a humanitarian organization that is normally deployed in war zones and in developing countries,” she said. “If we have to deploy those two bodies in order to save lives in our long-term-care facilities across Canada, then there is a serious problem.”
Donna Duncan, CEO of the Ontario Long Term Care Association, said she wrote to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau June 3 to ask for federal cash for capital improvements and human resources before the second wave of COVID-19.
She said she got a perfunctory response from a policy office at Health Canada just six days ago, with more than 100 outbreaks in long-term-care homes across the country again.
Duncan says the system needs dedicated federal help along the lines of what was offered in 2017 for mental health and home care.
Authorities in Quebec said there are five long-term-care homes where more than 25 per cent of residents have active cases of COVID -19 — down from eight care homes the day before.
They say there are six private seniors residences where more than a quarter of residents have active infections, a situation they describe as “critical.”
Quebec reported 1,030 new cases and 25 more deaths in Thursday’s update.
Manitoba announced 193 new
COVID-19 cases in Thursday’s update, a record daily high. Meanwhile, new projections suggest the growth of the COVID-19 pandemic is slowing in Ontario even though community spread of the virus continues.
Health officials say the modelling released Thursday shows the province appears to be moving away from the worst-case scenario as the second wave continues to take hold.
They say continuing to adopt targeted measures that account for regional variations will be important in trying to contain the spread of the virus.
Premier Doug Ford stressed the need for a “surgical ap
proach” to the pandemic.
He described the latest projections as “g ood new s” but warned residents not to ease up on public health measures such as physical distancing.
Previous projections, released late last month, showed the province recording 1,000 new daily cases by mid-October.
Ontario passed that threshold last weekend but the numbers dropped to the 800 range earlier this week, before rising again Thursday. The province reported 934 new cases of COVID-19 Thursday, and 10 new deaths.
Health Minister Christine Elliott says 420 cases are in Toronto, 169 in Peel Region, 95 in York Region and 62 in Ottawa.