‘It’s very bleak, like in a war zone’

As case counts decline, more care homes in York Region need help

It’s a beautiful mid-winter day, the sun shining on crisp white snow, and Sharron Cooke would like nothing more than to breathe in the fresh air. She can’t.

For more than a year she has been confined to her room on the third floor of Newmarket Health Centre; she can only look out the window and wish.

She wishes, too, she could see her friends and neighbours in the building, but she can’t do that, either.

They, too, are locked in isolation.

Most don’t have phones in their rooms, many don’t have family to visit, aren’t able to change TV channels, just languish and wait for the pandemic to end.

There is depression here, anxiety, lost friendships and profound loneliness.

“It’s very bleak,” she says, “like a war zone and we’re battling the unknown.”

And it’s a situation that cries out for change.

York Region mayors committed Jan. 14 to take a leadership role pushing the province for immediate change.

“I believe a generation has been let down here,” said Markham Mayor Frank Scarpitti as regional council approved a staff report with recommendations for the Ontario Longterm Care COVID-19 Commission.

The 46-page report says the pandemic has had a profound impact on an already flawed system. It calls for more funding and resources, better staffing and oversight.

While COVID-19 case counts may be starting to decline, the number of homes requiring help and direction in York Region has risen.

The province announced Jan. 18 that Mackenzie Health is taking over management of Villa Leonardo Gambin, a Woodbridge long-term-care home in its fourth outbreak since Nov. 20 with 119 cases and two deaths.

In Aurora, the medical officer of health ordered Willows Estate, in outbreak since Dec. 24, to improve staffing and infection control after inspections at the home uncovered problems.

They are the two most recent interventions. Public health issued similar orders to Villa Da Vinci in Woodbridge and Langstaff Care in Richmond Hill.

In the second wave of the pandemic, 26 of the region’s 28 long-term-care homes have had outbreaks, two-thirds of the region’s COVID-19 deaths have occurred here, and residents have been in lockdown for months.

Behind those numbers are tragic stories: an elderly parent who moved into a home, then died a week later from the virus; a mother dropped by busy staff in her outbreak-burdened home, then sent to hospital where she caught COVID-19; a formerly healthy senior who no longer recognizes his loved ones, who no longer wishes to live.

And then there’s Cooke, fortunate to remain strong, but worried about fellow residents she hasn’t seen in months.

As president of the Ontario Association of Residents Councils, Cooke takes part in weekly online/phone coffee chats and helps co-ordinate weekly resident forums for mutual support.

Cooke says caregivers have been working heroically to ease the loneliness. These “team members” put their heart and soul into caring and deserve better, she says.