Post-pandemic changes needed for seniors care: advocacy group
Considering the devastating impact the COVID-19 pandemic has had on residents of longterm care homes in Niagara and across Ontario, a seniors advocacy group says things will need to improve in the future. Guardian Angels program founder Betty Miller said governments need a new vision of what long-term care should be to prevent any future outbreaks among residents, rather than continuing to warehouse seniors in huge facilities.
Instead of building more large facilities, she said, the focus should be on investing in more smaller nursing homes and subsidizing the costs so seniors can afford to live within them.
At the same time, they should increase support for home-care services to allow people to stay in their own homes longer.
“Instead of putting all this money into the big homes and new institutions — I call them warehouses — let’s get that idea of having smaller homes, but also trying to keep people at home,” she said.
“If we can lobby governments, call our MPPS and write letters, and if the public pushed for this vision of helping home care, keeping people at home, because really disabled seniors are the only demographic that are still in these institutions, and it would be a much better way to push harder to keep people at home. Because there are alternatives.”
Meanwhile, Miller said, staff such as personal support workers should no longer be required to travel between longterm-care homes to earn an adequate income.
“Nursing homes should have good jobs for PSWS — full time, and let them work at one home,” she said. “I know that they’re not funded properly. The money isn’t used where it should be used. But what we’re thinking is in the future.”
Although most Niagara longterm-care homes that have experienced severe COVID-19 outbreaks have managed to bring them under control, Miller said Guardian Angels program members remain concerned about the impact a second wave of COVID-19 could have.
There’s also the threat of another, future pandemic.
“I realize that this can’t happen overnight, but this is what we should be doing,” she said. “If people can just have a new mindset on what it is to get older and how we treat these people. It’s so sad to see them end up this way.”