Victims of COVID-19 who didn’t have virus
Loss of family caregivers puts long-term care residents at risk
OTTAWA - From the moment she entered a long-term care facility in Ottawa, the elderly woman’s family was by her side, feeding her, caring for her and keeping a close eye on her health during daily visits.
That ended in March when long-term care homes across Ontario brought in strict novisitor policies because of the pandemic. Within a month, the woman’s health was failing. In mid-april, staff contacted her family to tell them she was unresponsive.
She died two days after being rushed to hospital. By then, she was severely dehydrated, had lost weight and was suffering from kidney failure, says her granddaughter Ilona Miller, a nurse practitioner. Among the first things Miller did when she got into the hospital to see her grandmother was soothe her cracked lips, which were covered with sores.
In order to protect her family’s privacy, Miller has asked that her grandmother’s name and the name of the institution where she lived be kept private.
The elderly woman tested negative for COVID-19, but her family believes she, too, was a victim of the pandemic. And she is not alone.
Families have long provided a crucial level of care and quality control for loved ones in long-term care, hospitals and group living situations. During the lockdown, that care has been removed as part of visitor bans.
Across Canada, families and organizations representing caregivers are calling on governments to let family caregivers back into longterm care homes, hospitals and group homes where their regular care should be deemed an essential service. Their absence, they say, is putting already vulnerable residents at increased risk during the pandemic.
Julie Drury, the strategic lead for patient partnership with the Canadian Foundation for Healthcare Improvement, says family caregivers play an essential role in the health system.
She said the visitor restrictions during the pandemic make sense, but essential family caregivers should be exempted. Like Miller’s family, many family members regularly help feed and care for their loved ones in longterm care, hospitals and group homes. Along with hands-on care, they check they are eating and drinking enough and not suffering from any health ailments that have been overlooked.
Their exclusion during the pandemic has left staff in some homes scrambling to try to feed residents, according to a nurse who volunteered to help at one hard-hit Ottawa long-term care home. When she got into their rooms around 7 p.m., their dinners were cold and untouched, she said.
With residents confined to their rooms, no additional help from families and increased staff shortages during the pandemic, staff members say they have very little time to spend making sure residents eat properly.
Ottawa Citizen has spoken with several families who say their loved ones, some of whom were suffering from COVID-19, lost significant amounts of weight while in long-term care homes during the pandemic.
Miller questions how her grandmother’s weight loss, urinary tract infection and dehydration went unnoticed for so long once family members were not in the home. Prior to the pandemic, Miller says, she could recognize subtle changes in her grandmother’s health and would alert the nurse.
She does not blame healthcare workers in the facility where her grandmother lived, but says the pandemic has revealed a long-term care system that is poorly equipped to deal effectively with medical needs of fragile residents.
“The COVID-19 pandemic has exposed serious faults in the system: imbalance of medical versus personal care, under-funded staffing levels that decrease workers’ motivation and predisposes them to work in two or three different facilities to make their salaries.”