Horrors in long-term care are no surprise

The only surprise in the military’s damning report on Ontario nursing homes is that anyone was surprised.

The horrors that Canadian soldiers found in five long-term-care homes in the Greater Toronto Area were already well-known.

We knew that such homes are routinely understaffed, a state of affairs that leads workers to cut corners.

In the case of the five Ontario homes, such corner-cutting included:

Leaving residents to fester in their own excrement. In some cases, soldiers were told residents hadn’t been bathed for weeks.

Leaving residents immobile in their beds all day instead of encouraging them to move around. This routinely leads to infected pressure sores.

Not taking the time needed to help residents eat. Instead, staff members often reported that residents had refused food. In one instance, the soldiers wrote, an attempt to hurry up feeding may have made a resident choke to death.

Oversedating residents just to keep them quiet. Soldiers reported that some residents were sedated even though they were simply sad and lonely.

Ignoring calls for help. In one home, soldiers reported that it took up to two hours for such cries to be answered.

Inadequate medical care. In one home, soldiers noted, the assigned doctor was rarely on site and had to be accessed by phone. Even then, the physician was not always reachable. In one instance, the soldiers noted, a fractured hip was not adequately addressed. In another, the home’s assigned physician insisted on prescribing an inappropriate drug.

Cutting back on cleaning in order to save money. In one case, this resulted in infestations of flies and cockroaches. In another, incontinent residents were limited to one soaking pad even if it became soiled.

A reluctance to use necessary medical equipment, such as masks and gloves, that cost money. This led to staff using the same protective equipment when dealing with all residents, including those who were diagnosed with COVID-19. It also led to their giving residents prescription medicine that was out of date.

The soldiers had been deployed to the five nursing homes, at Ontario’s request, to help them through the pandemic. And certainly, according to the military report, the homes made plenty of mistakes in their handling of the coronavirus.

In one instance, cooling fans set up by a home ended up blowing air from infected to clean areas.

But most of the horrors soldiers itemized had nothing to do with COVID-19. They predated the pandemic. What’s more, they had been well-known before the pandemic.

Premier Doug Ford said this week that he has never before read such an alarming report. If so, he hasn’t been paying much attention to the depressing saga of long-term care in this province.

All of this — the cheese-paring and casual cruelty — has been written about for years. The Star’s Moira Welsh has been reporting on the problems facing long-term care since 2003. So have other journalists.

Advocacy groups for seniors have long been sounding the alarm. There has even been a public inquiry into longterm care. Its report was issued last year.

All point to the same problems: a fixation on cost-cutting; a reliance on low-wage, undertrained workers; an assumption that the lives of the elderly aren’t worth much.

Even when the rules are followed, nursing homes are hardly generous. By law, residents are entitled to only two baths a week. The food, while technically healthy, is too often unappetizing.

A long-term-care home can be a grim place. This is what the soldiers found in five Ontario nursing homes. Horrifying? Yes. A surprise? No.

Most of the horrors soldiers saw had nothing to do with COVID-19. They predated the pandemic. They were well-known before the pandemic