Please, no more reports on long-term care, just action

It’s time to stop pointlessly killing trees for government reports about systemic problems in long-term care that simply sit on a shelf beside previous reports.

The second wave of the coronavirus is piercing Premier Doug Ford’s promised “iron ring of protection” around LTC homes, where 79,000 of our most vulnerable residents live. Over 70 of 630 homes had a COVID-19 outbreak by mid- October, and the number was growing daily.

Ontario Patient Ombudsman Cathy Fooks’ interim report into the horrific impact of COVID-19 in LTC homes — almost1,900 deaths so far — pointed out there have been a dozen such reports issued in Canada in the past six months. She also noted there are reports “going back decades” about funding and staffing of LTC homes.

So there’s lots of data identifying problems such as a chronic staffing shortage that became a crisis in the pandemic, inadequate infection prevention and control protocols, and a serious and frustrating lack of information from LTC homes to families. There are also good ideas in those reports, such as Fooks’ recommendation that every LTC home have a “partner organization” such as a hospital or municipality to provide support during a pandemic.

Ontario had to have local hospitals take over control of some long-termcare homes overwhelmed by COVID-19, and had to call in the military to provide staffing at other homes in similar crises. Seven months into the pandemic, the government had to ask the Red Cross to take over seven homes in the Ottawa area as the second wave hit.

The province should immediately provide the necessary funding to link every LTC home with a hospital that can provide ongoing oversight and assistance with training in safety protocols and proper use of personal protective equipment.

There also needs to be better protection for whistleblowers, the staff in LTC homes who see serious problems that management refuses to correct and that the public needs to know about. Being a personal care worker is extremely challenging work — about onequarter with two years or more experience leave the profession every year — so they need to know their jobs will be protected when they speak up.

A government-appointed panel investigating COVID-19 in long-term care has been hearing heartbreaking testimony from residents and families and some eye-opening stories from industry insiders. But instead of the premier’s promised public hearings, all we get are printed transcripts, days after the fact, which get very little attention from the media or the public.

Ford protected the Progressive Conservatives by ensuring there was no media coverage of testimony about his government’s slow reaction by setting terms of reference that allowed the panel to hear witnesses in private. Of course, that’s exactly what it did.

The Ontario Long Term Care Association told the panel it warned the government in January about preparedness, but got no real help from the province until April 15. It said half of all LTC deaths in Ontario from COVID-19 occurred before that date.

That shocking testimony is one reason we never got public hearings. The industry association issued another worrisome warning last month, expressing concerns the LTC sector was not adequately prepared for the second wave.

The federal government said it will set national standards for long-term care, even though it’s primarily a provincial jurisdiction, and it’s probably the best option given Ontario’s failure to set even a minimum number of hours of care each day for residents. But please, no more reports.