This is an excerpt from Second Opinion, a weekly roundup of health and medical science news emailed to subscribers every Saturday morning. If you haven’t subscribed yet, you can do that by clicking here.
As COVID-19 cases surge across Canada and outbreaks in nursing homes flare up once again, experts say vulnerable elderly populations are at extreme risk in the second wave due to a lack of government action.
“That is one of the most damning failures that’s taken place through the pandemic,” said Dr. Andrew Boozary, executive director of health and social policy for Toronto’s University Health Network.
“If we were going to be judged by how we protected our most susceptible and people who are structurally vulnerable — we failed them.”
Dozens of COVID-19 outbreaks have recently been reported in nursing homes in Ontario, B.C., Alberta and Quebec as the second wave arrives in much of Canada.
WATCH | Trudeau discusses the federal government’s role in long-term care:
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau explains what prompted his government to begin a dialogue with the provinces around national standards for long term care facilities. 1:49
In his address to the nation Wednesday night, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said the situations experienced by “too many elders” in long-term care homes is “unacceptable.”
“That has to change and it will change,” he said. “We will be working with the provinces and territories to set new national standards on long-term care.”
But Canada’s systemic failures in long-term care are nothing new, and neither are the calls for action.
Long-term care deficiencies a longstanding issue
A July report from the Royal Society of Canada, an association that includes some of Canada’s top scientists and scholars, described COVID-19 as “a shock wave that cracked wide all the fractures in our nursing home system.” It called on the federal government to act “immediately” on creating national standards of care.
Months later, no concrete action has yet been taken, and the second wave of COVID-19 infections is well underway in previously hard-hit provinces, such as Ontario, B.C. and Quebec.
On Friday, Trudeau conceded during a press conference that problems in long-term care facilities “existed long before COVID-19.”
Canadian Armed Forces personnel, along with hospital staff and some education workers, were among those brought in to assist long-term care homes during the first wave of the pandemic. A military report subsequently detailed abuse, neglect and cruelty inside nursing homes. (Ryan Remiorz/The Canadian Press)
“The systems that we had were inadequate all across the country,” he said. “They were not up to the task of protecting our seniors appropriately.”
But experts question why the process of fixing those systemic issues has only now just begun.
“The writing is on the wall that this had to happen yesterday,” said Boozary.
“To not ensure that every measure, every resource is in place to protect these families and their loved ones — to me is just damning, it’s egregious.”
The prime minister was quick to point out that long-term care is “very clearly a provincial jurisdiction,” adding that the federal government was busy helping the provinces “get the situation under control” early in the pandemic.
“Whether it was sending in the military or the Red Cross or sending extra financial support to vulnerable health care workers, the federal government was busy acting,” he said.
But Trudeau also said the need for national standards of long-term care only became clear to his government after “conversations with Canadians and the provinces” following the devastation caused in the first wave of the pandemic.
Long-term care facilities unprepared for second wave
A group of major stakeholders in Ontario’s long-term care system sent a 60-page letter to Ontario Premier Doug Ford and the ministers of both Health and Long-Term Care this week calling for “immediate action” to protect the health of residents, staff and family members.
“In the absence of these measures and support from government, Ontario’s long-term care homes are not currently ready to manage a second wave of COVID-19,” said the letter, which was first reported on by the Globe and Mail.
WATCH | Canada’s prime minister on the country’s second wave of COVID-19:
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau spoke to Canadians in a rare national address from his office on Parliament Hill. 1:47
“The recent surge in cases in Ontario and other provinces is a warning that we have little time to waste,” it stated. “We need decisive action now.”
Dr. Anna Banerji, an infectious disease expert and faculty lead for Indigenous and refugee health at the University of Toronto, said she’s not convinced Canadian long-term care homes have made the necessary changes to protect elderly residents in the second wave.
“We don’t want to see the same kind of disasters that we were seeing in the spring where we had all these people dying and the people that were living were basically living in squalor,” she said. “If that occurs again, it’s a real failure.”
Banerji said nursing homes need to ensure they have no more than one resident per room with individual access to their own bathroom, while staff should have adequate personal protective equipment and infection control training — something they lacked in the first wave.
Dr. Aisha Lofters, a family physician and researcher at Women’s College Hospital in Toronto, said nursing homes also need to ensure staff aren’t putting residents at unnecessary risk.
“In the early days, we saw a lot of people who were working in multiple long-term care homes, working part-time and casual, having to move from home to home to home,” she said.
“We saw the devastating effects of that.”
National standards of long-term care need enforcement
Dr. Naheed Dosani, a physician and health-justice advocate in Toronto, welcomes the creation of national standards for long-term care, but hopes those homes in violation of them will face serious consequences.
“One of the things that we need to be aware of is that at least in Ontario, it was shown that for-profit homes especially had a higher proportion of deaths,” he said.
Dosani said he wants the national standards to create a baseline for where care needs to be in nursing homes across Canada, so that seniors aren’t left to suffer the consequences.
“They already suffered in the first wave. My hope is that they don’t have to suffer and less people have to die in the second wave,” he said.
“Why would we allow this to happen in the second wave? The federal government has the ability to set that bar where it needs to be so that standard of care is met so that doesn’t have to happen again.”
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VANCOUVER – Contract negotiations resume today in Vancouver in a labour dispute that has paralyzed container cargo shipping at British Columbia’s ports since Monday.
The BC Maritime Employers Association and International Longshore and Warehouse Union Local 514 are scheduled to meet for the next three days in mediated talks to try to break a deadlock in negotiations.
The union, which represents more than 700 longshore supervisors at ports, including Vancouver, Prince Rupert and Nanaimo, has been without a contract since March last year.
The latest talks come after employers locked out workers in response to what it said was “strike activity” by union members.
The start of the lockout was then followed by several days of no engagement between the two parties, prompting federal Labour Minister Steven MacKinnon to speak with leaders on both sides, asking them to restart talks.
MacKinnon had said that the talks were “progressing at an insufficient pace, indicating a concerning absence of urgency from the parties involved” — a sentiment echoed by several business groups across Canada.
In a joint letter, more than 100 organizations, including the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, Business Council of Canada and associations representing industries from automotive and fertilizer to retail and mining, urged the government to do whatever it takes to end the work stoppage.
“While we acknowledge efforts to continue with mediation, parties have not been able to come to a negotiated agreement,” the letter says. “So, the federal government must take decisive action, using every tool at its disposal to resolve this dispute and limit the damage caused by this disruption.
“We simply cannot afford to once again put Canadian businesses at risk, which in turn puts Canadian livelihoods at risk.”
In the meantime, the union says it has filed a complaint to the Canada Industrial Relations Board against the employers, alleging the association threatened to pull existing conditions out of the last contract in direct contact with its members.
“The BCMEA is trying to undermine the union by attempting to turn members against its democratically elected leadership and bargaining committee — despite the fact that the BCMEA knows full well we received a 96 per cent mandate to take job action if needed,” union president Frank Morena said in a statement.
The employers have responded by calling the complaint “another meritless claim,” adding the final offer to the union that includes a 19.2 per cent wage increase over a four-year term remains on the table.
“The final offer has been on the table for over a week and represents a fair and balanced proposal for employees, and if accepted would end this dispute,” the employers’ statement says. “The offer does not require any concessions from the union.”
The union says the offer does not address the key issue of staffing requirement at the terminals as the port introduces more automation to cargo loading and unloading, which could potentially require fewer workers to operate than older systems.
The Port of Vancouver is the largest in Canada and has seen a number of labour disruptions, including two instances involving the rail and grain storage sectors earlier this year.
A 13-day strike by another group of workers at the port last year resulted in the disruption of a significant amount of shipping and trade.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 9, 2024.
The Royal Canadian Legion says a new partnership with e-commerce giant Amazon is helping boost its veterans’ fund, and will hopefully expand its donor base in the digital world.
Since the Oct. 25 launch of its Amazon.ca storefront, the legion says it has received nearly 10,000 orders for poppies.
Online shoppers can order lapel poppies on Amazon in exchange for donations or buy items such as “We Remember” lawn signs, Remembrance Day pins and other accessories, with all proceeds going to the legion’s Poppy Trust Fund for Canadian veterans and their families.
Nujma Bond, the legion’s national spokesperson, said the organization sees this move as keeping up with modern purchasing habits.
“As the world around us evolves we have been looking at different ways to distribute poppies and to make it easier for people to access them,” she said in an interview.
“This is definitely a way to reach a wider number of Canadians of all ages. And certainly younger Canadians are much more active on the web, on social media in general, so we’re also engaging in that way.”
Al Plume, a member of a legion branch in Trenton, Ont., said the online store can also help with outreach to veterans who are far from home.
“For veterans that are overseas and are away, (or) can’t get to a store they can order them online, it’s Amazon.” Plume said.
Plume spent 35 years in the military with the Royal Engineers, and retired eight years ago. He said making sure veterans are looked after is his passion.
“I’ve seen the struggles that our veterans have had with Veterans Affairs … and that’s why I got involved, with making sure that the people get to them and help the veterans with their paperwork.”
But the message about the Amazon storefront didn’t appear to reach all of the legion’s locations, with volunteers at Branch 179 on Vancouver’s Commercial Drive saying they hadn’t heard about the online push.
Holly Paddon, the branch’s poppy campaign co-ordinator and bartender, said the Amazon partnership never came up in meetings with other legion volunteers and officials.
“I work at the legion, I work with the Vancouver poppy office and I go to the meetings for the Vancouver poppy campaign — which includes all the legions in Vancouver — and not once has this been mentioned,” she said.
Paddon said the initiative is a great idea, but she would like to have known more about it.
The legion also sells a larger collection of items at poppystore.ca.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 9, 2024.
