As Quebec plans to reopen, care homes still a virus battleground
Overburdened workers toiling in ‘war zone’ conditions, union says
MONTREAL—Quebec Premier François Legault said this week there are “two worlds” in the province: the world of facilities providing long-term care to seniors, and the rest.
In one of those worlds, schools, stores and factories are preparing to reopen, albeit with restrictions, and sunny spring days have some people musing about the return of fishing, camping and gyms if COVID-19 cases stay under control.
But the situation is very different in the province’s long-term care homes, where dozens of residents die every day and overburdened workers toil in conditions one union leader likens to a war zone.
Seniors residences and longterm care homes account for about 80 per cent of the deaths in the province, and a handful of long-term-care homes have more than 100 cases and dozens of deaths each.
Hailey Doane, a nurse who was transferred from her usual workplace in a hospital to a long-term-care home in westend Montreal, says stopping the spread of the virus remains a challenge in the homes, despite the creation of “hot” and “cold” zones.
“They are in private rooms, but sometimes in the middle of a hallway where there are a lot of COVID patients, there are a couple that have tested negative,” she said in a phone interview. While residents are supposed to stay in their rooms, some get confused and wander.
Maintaining a normal routine of feeding, care and medication for the residents can also take longer when some workers simply don’t show up and others are new, she said.
On one bad day, she checked in for a report only to learn that three patients had died. Two orderlies cried as workers in full protective gear removed the bodies.
The spread of the virus through the facility despite best efforts to contain it has some staff wondering if they’re the source. “We’re starting to question, ‘Is it us?’” Doane said. “Are we just asymptomatic? They’re not proactively testing us.” Jonathan Deschamps, the president of a union representing several thousands workers, says patient attendants in some homes have described “war zone” conditions.
In some cases, he says an attendant who would generally care for seven residents is left with 20, leaving no time for basic care such as bathing or moving patients to avoid bed sores.
He said that while the government has largely addressed shortages of masks, gowns and gloves, distribution problems remain. Some managers are reluctant to give workers more than two masks per shift, even if theirs get dirty or wet, he says.
LONDON—British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and his fiancée, Carrie Symonds, announced the birth of a son on Wednesday, just two days after Johnson returned to work following hospitalization for the coronavirus.
Johnson’s office said Symonds gave birth to a “healthy baby boy” in a public hospital in London on Wednesday morning, and that both mother and infant were doing well.
Johnson was present for the birth but was back at work in 10 Downing Street within hours, as his government faces a deadline of next week to amend or extend the country’s coronavirus lockdown.
Johnson’s office said he would take paternity leave later in the year.
Conservative leader Johnson, 55, and Symonds, 32, announced in February that they were engaged and expecting a child together. At the time, they said the baby was due in early summer.
Johnson only returned to work Monday after suffering from a bout of coronavirus that left him dangerously ill. He spent a week in London’s St. Thomas’ Hospital, including three nights in intensive care. When he was discharged on April 13, he thanked medical workers at the hospital for saving his life, saying his condition “could have gone either way.”
Symonds, an environmental campaigner and former Conservative party staffer, also said she was sick for a week with COVID-19 symptoms, though she wasn’t tested for the virus.
Johnson’s office would not confirm Symonds’ due date or say whether the couple’s son had been born prematurely.
There has been speculation about links between the coronavirus in pregnant women and premature births. But Andrew Shennan, professor of obstetrics at King’s College London, said “there is currently no evidence that coronavirus causes preterm labour.”
The newborn boy is Symonds’ first child. Johnson has four children with his second wife Marina Wheeler, from whom he is divorced, and has fathered at least one other child outside his marriages.
Downing Street would not confirm now many other children Johnson has, saying only that he was “delighted about the birth of his baby son.”
The baby is the third born to a sitting British prime minister this century. The wives of leaders Tony Blair and David Cameron also had babies while their husbands were in office.
The birth comes as the British government faces big decisions about how and when to ease the countrywide lockdown imposed March 23 to slow the spread of the coronavirus. The measures are due to be in place at least until May 7.
Britain is among the countries hardest hit by the pandemic. On Wednesday, the official death toll of people with the coronavirus in the U.K. leapt to 26,097, from 21,678 a day earlier, after deaths outside hospitals — in nursing homes and other settings — were added for the first time.
Johnson’s government faces growing criticism over its slowness in getting enough protective equipment to medics and nursing home staff and its struggle to increase the number of tests being performed for the virus.
Opposition Labour party Leader Keir Starmer, who had been due to face off against Johnson in the Commons, said he hoped the birth brought the couple “incredible relief and joy.”