The Chronicle Herald (Provincial)
Disabled overlooked: advocate
Vicky Levack broke down in tears in her nursing home room shower because she could no longer pretend to be OK.
Eight days had passed since the province ordered Arborstone Enhanced Care — along with the 96 other long-term care facilities under its control — to shut their doors to visitors. The young woman’s nurse witnessed her breakdown last Thursday and inquired what was wrong.
"I just felt helpless, scared," said Levack. "I said you guys get to leave here at the end of your shift; you guys get to go out into the world."
The 29-year-old, who copes with a serious form of cerebral palsy, has been cut off from the outside world as people and governments fight to contain a rapidly spreading deadly virus. Meanwhile, she worries about her immediate safety.
The majority of the people she lives with are more than twice her age and are among the most vulnerable to the virus. Over the last three days, three cases of the virus have been identified among three nursing homes workers in the province.
Levack’s frustrated with her provincially funded living arrangement and hopes one day she’ll be moved to an apartment setting in the community with the supports she needs.
"If I could I would move out in a second. It seems like the government just wants to forget about us."
But she said her predicament pales in comparison to some 900 other disabled people locked in eight Department of Community Servicesfunded residential institutions across this province.
Levack is a member of the Disability Rights Coalition of Nova Scotia claiming these people — the majority contend with serious intellectual disabilities — have been overlooked in the province’s COVID-19 pandemic plan.
Last Wednesday the group emailed a letter to the province’s chief medical officer of health Dr. Robert Strang and Tracey Taweel, deputy minister of community services, outlining "urgent concerns for Nova Scotians living with disabilities during this pandemic." The letter calls for a meeting including public health experts, officials oversing the Dcs-funded institutions, and community members to identify and implement health protections for those residents.
The group argues the situation is critical for residents of these institutions — which include Quest in Halifax and Bridgewater’s Riverview
Enhanced Living — who live in tight living quarters, often sharing bedrooms, cafeterias, and washrooms. The letter calls on the government to move as many residents out of congregate institutional settings to community-based homes — with appropriate supports and services.
The government has not indicated that it is considering this though last month it granted temporary release to 41 inmates to mitigate the virus's spread within jails.
Claire Mcneil, the coalition's lawyer, said the government must offer the same protection for disabled residents under its care. Many of those people have underlying health conditions, making them more susceptible to the virus, she said.
“The government has to be careful that it is not undervaluing and ignoring the needs of people with disabilities,” said Mcneil.
“You've got them in a highly vulnerable state now and we heard it's important to get people out of prisons because of very similar kinds of conditions. But people with disabilities are kind of caught in the crosshairs here and we haven't heard the same level of attention being given to them."
The pandemic further emphasizes that these people should never have been placed in these institutions in the first place, said Mcneil. The province has already pledged to close each of them, admitting that they are not suitable living spaces.
Last March, a Nova Scotia Human Rights Board of Inquiry ruled that the province discriminated against three residents housed in these facilities based on their mental disabilities. The ruling stated that three were subjected to years of “soul-destroying” institutionalization. There are more than 1,500 disabled adults on the province's waiting list for appropriate housing. This year's budget contains no new money to build community-supported homes for disabled adults.
Department of Community Services said it is in continuous contact with its facilities — "providing information, answering questions and supporting them in implementing their pandemic plans and providing any financial resources needed to support participants." Each of the institutions are governed by a board of directors that answers to Department of Community Service. Each are required to have an Emergency/disaster plan as a condition of licensing. The Chronicle Herald requested copies of the plans but they were not provided.
Joyce d'entremont, chair of the association of adult residential and regional rehabilitation centres, said moving residents wouldn't be in their best interest because many of the residents consider the institutions home and to move them safely during a pandemic would be difficult. But she said she's working long hours with each facility as well as Public Health and Department of Community Services to ensure "we do everything right."
She said each facility follows strict protocols that include screening residents twice a day for symptoms of the virus. Staff are also subject to heavy screening, she said. Staff are required to have their temperatures taken before entering the building and are checked for symptoms. Anyone who travels between provinces is required to be quarantine for 14 days.
"We have been sharing best practices for the last month and a half," she said. "We are ensuring that our participants are kept as safe as we can."
Sheila Wildeman, a Dalhousie University law professor, said those precautions don't go far enough. Wildeman, an expert in disability and human rights law, said the province needs to start moving people out of these facilities now, and for good
"(Residents) continue to be forced to live in congregate living institutions, and continue to be ignored," said Wildeman. "This is despite the fact that they are also living in conditions where it is impossible to meaningfully effect social distancing, and are even more likely to have health conditions render them vulnerable to the worst effects of COVID-19."
She said it's clearer now than ever how critically important it is to support people in the community rather “than warehousing them in large congregate living facilities as the province continues to do.”