Name: 82% of Canada’s COVID-19 deaths have been in long-term care, new data reveals
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82% of Canada’s COVID-19 deaths have been in long-term care, new data reveals

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close This copy is for your personal non-commercial use only. To orderpresentation-ready copies of Toronto Star content for distributionto colleagues, clients or customers, or inquire aboutpermissions/licensing, please go to: OTTAWA—New data reveals the overwhelming toll on elderly Canadians in long-term care during the , showing they make up 82 per cent of all deaths.The National Institute on Aging says that as of May 6, 3,436 residents and six staff members of long term care settings had died of COVID-19, representing 82 per cent of the 4,167 deaths reported as of Wednesday.Dr. Samir Sinha, research director at the institute, says it is a staggering figure, given the roughly 400,000 residents living in care homes represent just one per cent of Canada’s population.And it is a much higher figure than was indicated in a study released days ago by the International Long-Term Care Policy Network.It said people in long-term care accounted for 62 per cent of Canada’s COVID-19 deaths. It Canada has the highest proportion of deaths from COVID-19 in long term care settings among 14 countries.Sinha’s team compiled data from long-term care residences, nursing and retirement homes, public health units and the provinces.Ottawa has not released national data on the exact number of deaths in the long term care sector. However, chief public health officer Dr. Theresa Tam confirmed Thursday that about 81 per cent of deaths are “linked to long term care facilities.”Sinha, who is also director of geriatrics at the Sinai Health System and the University Health Network, says the most affected provinces are Quebec and Ontario, followed well behind by Alberta, B.C. and Nova Scotia.Ontario has seen outbreaks in 300 homes, and Quebec in at least 273 homes, he said. Sinha suggested Quebec’s number could be even higher, as it stopped releasing a list of affected homes on April 30. Quebec is still listing cases and deaths among residents, but not of staff.At the request of the Quebec and Ontario governments, Ottawa dispatched the armed forces to help out. By midmonth, it is expected that some 1,000 personnel will be assisting in 25 Quebec facilities and in five in the Toronto area.Last fall, the National Institute on Aging long term care homes were plagued by conditions that increased the risk of spreading infections: people living in close quarters in residences faced with chronic shortages of staff, with little space or ability to enforce proper physical distancing measures, where poorly paid employees often work on a part-time basis at multiple facilities, increasing the risk.The pandemic has borne out those fears.As COVID-19 exposed those vulnerabilities, Ottawa worked out national care guidelines for the pandemic with the provinces, most of which followed policy Sinha’s group offered the federal government last month.The national recommend restrictions on visitors and volunteers to only people essential for basic personal, medical or compassionate resident care; requirements that all staff or essential visitors wear masks; infection control training on hand hygiene and use of personal protective equipment; physical distancing; the cancellation of non-essential outings; routine additional cleaning; and efforts to prevent staff who work in more than one location.Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has said the federal government will spend up to $3 billion to help provinces top-up the wages of low-income essential workers. Provinces and territories are expected to kick in an extra $1 billion, but it will be up to them to decide who qualifies for the wage increase.They are temporary fixes, but bigger solutions are required, experts say.In Canada, provinces are responsible for health and long term care services. Long-term care is not covered by the Canada Health Act, so there are no federal or national standards or guidelines.Canada has a mash-up of systems that vary from province to province, says Sinha.Long-term care for the elderly is delivered at home, through community-based supports, or in buildings like nursing homes; relies on a mix of public and private funding; uses mix of providers, for-profit and not-for-profit; and relies on paid and unpaid caregivers (8 million look after seniors at home, saving governments billions). Paid workers may be unionized or non-unionized. Wages swing widely, depending on whether a personal support worker is employed at a hospital or a temp agency.“No province does it better,” said Sinha.The National Union of Public and General Employees to extend federal health law to cover residential-care facilities — that is, to take control by enshrining long-term care within the Canada Health Act in order to enforce national standards of care and accessibility.Sinha says federal guidelines and standards are necessary and useful but Canada needs a more drastic overhaul, including more funding.Provinces could deliver good care but he says the focus of all federal and provincial spending in the sector should shift.Sinha says a good model is Denmark, which radically changed its approach 30 years ago. It decided to spend more on home- and community-based care as opposed to facilities. It built more assisted living and supportive housing units, changed laws to require health professionals to make annual preventive house calls to people over 75, adopted a “re-ablement” policy approach that promotes “restorative” care, such as coaching seniors who’d recovered from illness in hospital how to relearn to feed and look after themselves in their homes.Denmark avoided building any new nursing homes for nearly 20 years, while closing thousands of hospital beds, and seeing a 12 per cent reduction in long-term care expenditures on the population over 80 during the first decade.That’s the opposite of many OECD countries. Denmark spends 36 per cent of its long term care funding on services in buildings like nursing homes, and 64 per cent on home- and community-based care. OECD countries spend on average 65 per cent of long term care funding in settings like nursing homes and only 35 per cent on home and community-based care.Trudeau says the tragedy unfolding in long term care homes and the question of whether long-term care should be brought under the umbrella of the Canada Health Act will be part of post-pandemic reviews.“The system is absolutely broken,” Premier Doug Ford said this week. “We are going to fix it, but we have to make sure we take care of the crisis right now.”Asked if there should be an end to privatized facilities, Ford said the province cannot afford to financially carry the cost.No fix will be easy, and there is already push back against Ottawa taking more control.Quebec Premier François Legault says there’s no need for Ottawa to take over jurisdiction, that Ottawa just needs to pay the provinces more in health and social transfers and the provinces will manage better on their own, thank you very much.Read more about: JOIN THE CONVERSATION Q:Anyone can read Conversations, but to contribute, you should be registered Torstar account holder. 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close This copy is for your personal non-commercial use only. To orderpresentation-ready copies of Toronto Star content for distributionto colleagues, clients or customers, or inquire aboutpermissions/licensing, please go to: OTTAWA—New data reveals the overwhelming toll on elderly Canadians in long-term care during the , showing they make up 82 per cent of all deaths.The National Institute on Aging says that as of May 6, 3,436 residents and six staff members of long term care settings had died of COVID-19, representing 82 per cent of the 4,167 deaths reported as of Wednesday.Dr. Samir...

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82% of Canada’s COVID-19 deaths have been in long-term care, new data reveals

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