Calls grow for rapid tests in care homes
Felix Eckert saw little of his family in the final months of his life.
Only when the 90-year-old retired builder became ill and lost the ability to communicate were family members allowed more than a single weekly visit and only because he was moved from his long-term care home to Eagle Ridge Hospital.
“We were denied access to the care home on his 90th birthday, which was Oct. 11, and he died on Oct. 19 after being hospitalized for five days,” said Darlene Mercer, his daughter and medical representative. “He turned 90 with no family present.”
Mercer is calling for care homes to allow more access for family members by using rapid testing for COVID-19.
“I think it's critical,” she said. “Family members really pick up the slack and provide the most caring attention that residents are ever going to have. Thousands of families are going through this.”
Before the pandemic hit B.C., Mercer visited her father about four times a week, sometimes twice a day. When the first lockdown came in March, she didn't see him for months and when she did he had lost a lot of weight.
“I had been bringing him outside food and treats and he was eating on his own,” she recalled. “But when I saw him at the end of June it was outside, six feet away at the end of a table, and he looked like a dishevelled scarecrow.”
“It was shocking because they had told me he was doing fine,” she said.
Felix was having so much difficulty eating by then that he ended up with bacterial pneumonia, likely from getting food or drink in his lungs.
During his hospital stay, she was able to visit her father daily. But once he recovered, the care home allowed her in only weekly and for some meetings with medical staff.
“We need better access and we need it quickly,” said Mercer. “We don't have time. They don't have time.”
B.C. is in possession of 27,000 ID Now rapid tests and 131 machines for analyzing the swabs, far short of the number needed to equip every care home in B.C., said provincial health officer Bonnie Henry.
B.C. also has 500,000 Panbio swab tests, but they must be administered by a health care professional. Unfortunately, those tests cannot be used for screening apparently healthy people.
“Right now, we're limited in how we can use these,” said Henry. “They are also only licensed for use in people who are symptomatic.”
Earlier this month, the B.C. seniors advocate, Isobel Mackenzie, called on the government to relax restrictions on visits to care homes to allow more visitors, more often, and to balance the risk of COVID-19 with the risk to a resident's health from social isolation.
The vast majority of B. C. COVID-19 deaths has been among people aged 70 years and up.
Most people in long-term care are in the final 18 months of their lives, Mackenzie said in her latest report, Staying Apart to Stay Safe.
Since visitation restrictions were eased in June after the initial wave of COVID-19 cases, the majority of residents are receiving visits once a week or less and visits are often 30 minutes or less, the report says.
“The comments we heard from hundreds of family members indicate there is a greater fear of death from loneliness,” Mackenzie wrote.
To date, no care home outbreak has been traced to a visitor, said Mackenzie. But fast testing could presumably identify staff members who arrive for work with an active infection, she argues.