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Hospitals, long-term care homes have little room for second-wave surge, inquiry hears – Canada News – Castanet.net

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Hospitals and long-term care homes are nearly at capacity and won’t be able to handle a surge in COVID-19 patients during the second wave of the pandemic, an independent commission has heard.

While there are plenty of physical spaces set to handle an influx in patients, which include many field hospitals ready to go, there is no one to staff them, the Ontario Hospital Association told the Long-Term Care COVID-19 Commission earlier this month.

That leaves hospitals across the province with only one quick solution, which they have dubbed the “dimmer switch” — shutting down elective surgeries once again to free up more beds and staff, the association said.

The commission, which is investigating how the novel virus spread in the long-term care system, isn’t open to the public, but transcripts of testimony are posted online days later. The hospital association testified on Oct. 5, and the transcript was posted two weeks later.

Barbara Collins, the CEO of Humber River Hospital, testified that about 5,000 hospital patients in the province could be transferred to long-term care homes to continue their recovery. But those homes, she said, have no room, partially due to a government rule that limits use of three- and four-bedroom wards, which proved deadly during the first wave of the pandemic.

“We survived last time, largely because we cancelled surgery,” Collins told the commission.

“It is being spoken about as a dimmer switch this time.”

That option, which led to a backlog of nearly 200,000 surgeries in Ontario, remains the best — and potentially only — option for hospitals to quickly free up space and staff to handle a rush of COVID-19 patients, she said.

In the early days of the pandemic, the province focused on creating space in hospitals, but the COVID-19 surge occurred in long-term care homes, the commission has previously heard.

In addition to cancelling surgeries, hospitals moved as many patients as possible to long-term care facilities in February and March, said Gillian Kernaghan, the CEO of St. Joseph’s Health Care in London, Ont.

That set the stage for the novel coronavirus to tear through the homes with deadly effects.

“It meant that when long-term care started to see cases with COVID, they had no places to isolate people because they were full,” Kernaghan said.

Many long-term care homes were overrun by COVID-19, especially in March and April before the province finally launched its action plan to deal with the catastrophic outbreaks in nursing homes.

To date, 1,910 long-term care residents have died of the disease.

Now, with elective surgeries back on, hospitals are near capacity, said Anthony Dale, the association’s president.

And this time around, the health-care system faces another crisis: staffing.

“The challenge is that long-term care homes, hospitals, home care, are all facing human resource shortages right now, and so it is not actually the physical capacity we are worried about right now,” Kernaghan said.

She said the province’s directive to only allow staff to work with one employer has also contributed to the human resource crisis in long-term care homes.

“We probably had 10 to 12 homes that we worked with very actively every day for whom staffing crisis was precipitated by the single-employer directive, and more commonly the person picked the hospital to work in because of lots of reasons,” Kernaghan said.

“And this is when it became somewhat ridiculous, because what we then had to do when we had a staffing crisis, we went to the hospital. They sent the same staff member back technically as a hospital staff member to solve the problem in the long-term care home.”

Dale said he would like the province to rethink it’s single-employer edict.

“Staffing shortages, as the members have said, remains a very significant issue, particularly in long-term care, so we do recommend a thoughtful re-evaluation of the universal application of the single-employer policy,” he said.

Dale also warned that the current setup to fight COVID-19 in Ontario, which relies heavily on hospitals and their staffs, is “precarious.”

“There is a huge amount of risk uploaded into the system, and with our colleagues in long-term care facing the challenges that they are, even with the assistance of hospitals, this is quite a precarious situation, and it is why we have been so aggressive in calling for new public health measures to stop community spread,” Dale said.

There are “historic high numbers” of patients now in hospital who do not need to be there, but have nowhere else to recover, he said.

Kernaghan said there is no ability to ramp up staffing at both hospitals and long-term care homes in rural Ontario, partially because there is no child-care help.

“In many of our rural regions, there is no staff to hire,” Kernaghan said. “It is not for lack of trying, I can assure you.”

The staffing challenge in cities is different, she said, with many staff having to stay home if their child is sick with COVID-19 or have been exposed to the disease.

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Roots sees room for expansion in activewear, reports $5.2M Q2 loss and sales drop

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September 13, 2024

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TORONTO – Roots Corp. may have built its brand on all things comfy and cosy, but its CEO says activewear is now “really becoming a core part” of the brand.

The category, which at Roots spans leggings, tracksuits, sports bras and bike shorts, has seen such sustained double-digit growth that Meghan Roach plans to make it a key part of the business’ future.

“It’s an area … you will see us continue to expand upon,” she told analysts on a Friday call.

The Toronto-based retailer’s push into activewear has taken shape over many years and included several turns as the official designer and supplier of Team Canada’s Olympic uniform.

But consumers have had plenty of choice when it comes to workout gear and other apparel suited to their sporting needs. On top of the slew of athletic brands like Nike and Adidas, shoppers have also gravitated toward Lululemon Athletica Inc., Alo and Vuori, ramping up competition in the activewear category.

Roach feels Roots’ toehold in the category stems from the fit, feel and following its merchandise has cultivated.

“Our product really resonates with (shoppers) because you can wear it through multiple different use cases and occasions,” she said.

“We’ve been seeing customers come back again and again for some of these core products in our activewear collection.”

Her remarks came the same day as Roots revealed it lost $5.2 million in its latest quarter compared with a loss of $5.3 million in the same quarter last year.

The company said the second-quarter loss amounted to 13 cents per diluted share for the quarter ended Aug. 3, the same as a year earlier.

In presenting the results, Roach reminded analysts that the first half of the year is usually “seasonally small,” representing just 30 per cent of the company’s annual sales.

Sales for the second quarter totalled $47.7 million, down from $49.4 million in the same quarter last year.

The move lower came as direct-to-consumer sales amounted to $36.4 million, down from $37.1 million a year earlier, as comparable sales edged down 0.2 per cent.

The numbers reflect the fact that Roots continued to grapple with inventory challenges in the company’s Cooper fleece line that first cropped up in its previous quarter.

Roots recently began to use artificial intelligence to assist with daily inventory replenishments and said more tools helping with allocation will go live in the next quarter.

Beyond that time period, the company intends to keep exploring AI and renovate more of its stores.

It will also re-evaluate its design ranks.

Roots announced Friday that chief product officer Karuna Scheinfeld has stepped down.

Rather than fill the role, the company plans to hire senior level design talent with international experience in the outdoor and activewear sectors who will take on tasks previously done by the chief product officer.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 13, 2024.

Companies in this story: (TSX:ROOT)

The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.

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Talks on today over HandyDART strike affecting vulnerable people in Metro Vancouver

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September 12, 2024

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VANCOUVER – Mediated talks between the union representing HandyDART workers in Metro Vancouver and its employer, Transdev, are set to resume today as a strike that has stopped most services drags into a second week.

No timeline has been set for the length of the negotiations, but Joe McCann, president of the Amalgamated Transit Union Local 1724, says they are willing to stay there as long as it takes, even if talks drag on all night.

About 600 employees of the door-to-door transit service for people unable to navigate the conventional transit system have been on strike since last Tuesday, pausing service for all but essential medical trips.

Hundreds of drivers rallied outside TransLink’s head office earlier this week, calling for the transportation provider to intervene in the dispute with Transdev, which was contracted to oversee HandyDART service.

Transdev said earlier this week that it will provide a reply to the union’s latest proposal on Thursday.

A statement from the company said it “strongly believes” that their employees deserve fair wages, and that a fair contract “must balance the needs of their employees, clients and taxpayers.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 12, 2024.

The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.

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Transat AT reports $39.9M Q3 loss compared with $57.3M profit a year earlier

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September 12, 2024

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MONTREAL – Travel company Transat AT Inc. reported a loss in its latest quarter compared with a profit a year earlier as its revenue edged lower.

The parent company of Air Transat says it lost $39.9 million or $1.03 per diluted share in its quarter ended July 31.

The result compared with a profit of $57.3 million or $1.49 per diluted share a year earlier.

Revenue in what was the company’s third quarter totalled $736.2 million, down from $746.3 million in the same quarter last year.

On an adjusted basis, Transat says it lost $1.10 per share in its latest quarter compared with an adjusted profit of $1.10 per share a year earlier.

Transat chief executive Annick Guérard says demand for leisure travel remains healthy, as evidenced by higher traffic, but consumers are increasingly price conscious given the current economic uncertainty.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 12, 2024.

Companies in this story: (TSX:TRZ)

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