‘Stop the Senicide’ moves online
Organizers ask families to share heartbreaking stories in videos
Susan Park called it heartbreaking to see her 57-year-old sister Andrea Bartscher during almost daily video calls.
“Her hair is filthy,” she said. “Her face is pasty white.”
She said Bartscher, who has a mental illness, has been unable to leave her room at Extendicare long-term-care home in St. Catharines, and hasn’t had a shower in five weeks since an outbreak was declared there on Dec. 12.
“I’m am so upset. It is so heartbreaking for me,” Park said. “How can you walk by these people and look at the suffering?”
Despite the lockdown to prevent the spread of the COVID-19 within the facility — one of 24 long-term-care homes in Niagara currently experiencing outbreaks during the pandemic’s second wave — Park said her sister was diagnosed with the virus on Sunday.
“Imagine the scare that put through me also,” she said, adding she has yet to hear an update on her sister’s condition.
It’s left Park feeling helpless and heartbroken.
“I can’t go in. I can’t see her,” she said. “I can’t do anything other than call her.”
Maureen Mcdermott — who started a grassroots lobby group called Voices of Longterm Care in the spring after her 93-year-old mother, Elsie, survived after being diagnosed with COVID-19 during an outbreak at a long-term-care home in Sutton, Ont. — organized the rally at Extendicare at noon on Saturday, as well as a rally a day earlier at Shalom Village in Hamilton, on Friday.
It was to be part of a provincewide “Stop the Senicide” campaign, visiting hard-hit seniors’ facilities across Ontario. But those events have now gone online.
“With the stay-at-home measures, I think it would be pretty irresponsible of us to come out and encourage families to come out,” said Mcdermott, who lives in Newmarket. “We’re so disappointed. We have to keep everyone’s safety in mind and the fact that we’re standing outside long-term-care homes that are riddled (with COVID-19), it just didn’t make any sense.”
Instead, she said the organization is asking families that have been impacted by the outbreaks to create one-minute videos sharing their stories and post them online.
Mcdermott said details are being finalized about the online protest and she will provide more information on her social media account.
The Ministry of Long-term Care reported Thursday 244 long-term-care homes across Ontario are currently experiencing outbreaks. At least 3,063 residents and 10 staff have died since the pandemic began.
In Niagara, outbreaks are currently underway at 25 longterm-care homes.
After the impact the virus had on long-term-care homes in the spring, Mcdermott wonders why the outbreaks have continued to this extent during the second wave.
“It sounds like we should have all packed up and moved to Quebec, because they spent the time in the summer, and they spent the money that was given to them by the federal government to do a massive hiring blitz. They’re doing OK.”
Carol Dueck, chairperson of the Network 4 Long Term Care Advocacy Committee, agreed.
She said the province was warned “the second wave was going to be worse and they didn’t run out like Quebec did and really orient and train and recruit people to get ready.”
Ontario received $7 billion of federal funding in July, while an additional $1-billion was divvied up among the provinces in November.