Care home staff should be wearing masks

So long, April. We won’t forget you, as hard as we might try.

The last time we turned the page on the calendar, Niagara was reporting 47 confirmed cases of COVID-19 and four deaths.

Since then it’s been 30 days of heartbreak, community spirit, anxiety, resilience, isolation and, remarkably, finding novel ways to break through and still maintain a little human contact.

We turned the page again Friday, and the death count had increased tenfold, at least 45 Niagara lives lost since the pandemic started. And 494 positive cases.

We’re continually told the only way our lives are going to gradually return to normal by June, July, August is if we’re strict in taking precautions.

Which brings us to a recent incident at Henley House long-term care home in St. Catharines. Several of the 184 employees complained they weren’t provided personal protective equipment to wear after a COVID-19 outbreak was declared there by public health April 22.

Five refused to go inside until they were provided N95 masks. Their union became involved, and eventually the Ontario labour ministry looked into it.

It found one of the workers, a registered practical nurse, should be provided a mask, but that decision applied only to her.

At this point it’s not known if all staff there have been given masks. On-site management referred questions to the owner, Primacare Living Solutions, which did not respond.

With everything we have learned about the coronavirus, proper protective equipment should already be available to every front-line worker in every seniors’ care home.

A representative for the Laborers’ International Union of North America, which represents the Henley House workers, said staff there and at other homes have been told not to wear masks because it might upset residents. If true, that’s ludicrous.

Most of those elderly people are all too aware COVID-19 could be lethal for their caregivers, and for themselves. You don’t have to tell them it’s a dangerous situation.

But at this time, every front-line worker in every seniors’ home should be wearing PPE. Every day, whether or not a COVID outbreak has been declared there. It’s just too dangerous to do otherwise.

It’s not only to protect the health-care workers, but also to protect vulnerable residents.

Staff, after hours, are out in the community, buying groceries, doing their daily tasks, coming into contact with others and perhaps picking up the virus.

It’s been proven that people over 60 are among those most vulnerable to COVID-19, and they are far less able to fight it off than younger people.

Any agency that takes seniors into its care is obligated to provide them the best protection possible, and that includes staff donning masks.

These times are already stressful for personal support workers, nurses and front-line staff who work in nursing homes.

They deal with aging residents, strict new rules on the job, and the fear of bringing an illness home to their families.

People can be asymptomatic and still have the virus. Seniors are being tested in these homes when they show symptoms that could be COVID-19. Staff are also being tested.

Results take a day or two to come back. Every day, staff goes home wondering if one of their residents will be one that tests positive.

These times are stressful enough already. Staff should all wear masks, every day.