The Chronicle Herald (Provincial)
Premier grilled on Northwood tragedy
Premier Iain Rankin was besieged by questions Thursday about the COVID-19 outbreak and death toll last spring at Northwood longterm-care home in Halifax.
During question period, opposition leaders Tim Houston and Gary Burrill both pushed the premier to commit to an inquiry into the Northwood tragedy that resulted in 53 of the 66 deaths in Nova Scotia from the virus.
Houston, the Progressive Conservative leader, referred to a Northwood article printed in The Coast that he said included “many heartwrenching accounts of lives lost, bereaved family members and some pretty damning comments from medical leaders.”
Rankin responded that his heart and the hearts of all Nova Scotians “go out to the families that were impacted at the long-term care facility at Northwood and we need to make sure we do better.”
Rankin said he’s sure that everyone would like to go back in time with what is known today about COVID.
“What we can do is move forward and make the key investments that are required,” Rankin said. “That is underway, looking at this budget and injecting funds in areas that are necessary to help bolster our long-term care centres to keep our seniors safe.”
Houston said it is not good enough to say “we did the best that we could do,” and rest on the laurels of what is considered an overall good response to the pandemic.
Rankin said the Northwood tragedy is part of a larger Canadian story of the impact of COVID on long-term-care centres.
“We’ve done well to make sure that we learned from those mistakes, looking at the independent reports to ensure that we make the changes required so that this does not happen again,” Rankin said. “This was a tragedy that all Nova Scotians don’t want to see happen. We want to prevent a third wave, expedite our vaccines to those that are living in long-term-care centres.”
Rankin said nearly half of the people residing in longterm care have already received a second vaccine dose.
Houston said the government failed the residents of Northwood and called for a full and proper inquiry into the Northwood tragedy to replace what he called the “inadequate review” that has been completed.
As the anniversary of the first COVID death at Northwood is marked this week, Gary Burrill, leader of the New Democratic Party, said cuts of $360,000 and $600,000 from Northwood’s operating budget in 2015 and 2016 left the facility with staffing levels that could not deal with the outbreak.
Rankin said since those years, there have been two reviews of Northwood.
“We’ve invested an increase of over $100 million in our long-term sector in this budget,” Rankin said. “We are going to continue to look at the (review) recommendations. All of the short-term recommendations are underway and we’re looking to continue to make the investments in the right area so we don’t have outbreaks in our centres.”
In a news release issued Thursday, the NDP also called for an inquiry into long-term care in the province, following up on legislation it tabled in March entitled Commision of Inquiry into Long-term Care Act.
The commission would be given the power to investigate the state of long-term care in the province and make recommendations about funding, staffing levels, minimum hours of care per resident per day, and many other factors.
In the release, the NDP said the Liberal government cut $5 million from long-term care budgets during its first five years in power.
“It is clear that there were preventative measures that could have saved lives at Northwood and could prevent future deaths from infectious disease,” NDP health critic Susan Leblanc said in the release. “An inquiry would help identify why these measures were not taken. We owe the people who have lived and worked through this unimaginable tragedy to make sure we fully understand what went wrong and commit to making systemic changes that are needed in long-term care.”
Burrill said during question period that Northwood had applied to the Liberal government three times for an expansion of the facility that could accommodate for housing one resident per room. Northwood was rejected three times, he said.
Barbara Adams, the PC member from Cole Harbour-eastern Passage, said Northwood showed that government did not have an adequate contingency staffing plan for long-term care facilities during the pandemic.
“We are going to continue to make investments where they are required,” Rankin said. “That’s why the minister highlighted some of the immediate response and how we had to bring in 200 support staff into long-term care at that time. In this budget, we are very focused on priority areas, especially dealing with the pandemic.
“Specific to long-term care, it’s a 16 per cent increase. It’s an historic investment that we need to continue to look at as we move forward, while at the same time, making sure that we keep COVID out of our province and that we have restrictions in place to prevent it entering any home again.”
Adams said it’s important to remind everyone that “historic investment followed historic cuts.”
“It is clear that there were preventative measures that could have saved lives at Northwood and could prevent future deaths from infectious disease.”
Susan Leblanc NDP health critic