From: brewnoser2@gmail.com   
      
   If that happens again, they'd all better be vaccinated against Covid and   
   tested every day. This is a shameful situation. Any Canadians with elderly   
   relatives in such facilities have to make their voices heard NOW, not wait   
   until the epidemic is over.   
      
   These private, for-profits businesses are short-staffed because they won't pay   
   caregivers decent wages that retain staff and treat the elderly the way they   
   deserve to be treated in old age.   
      
   The last sentence of this news article puts the onus of change squarely on our   
   own governments - both federal and provincial. Remember the latin inscription   
   on many gravestones: Sum quod eris.   
      
   That saying also applies to getting old and likely ending up in    
   rivately-owned, for profit, care facilities like we have now. Speak up now -   
   if not for them - for your future self.   
   _________________________________   
      
   Province needs to call in the military again to help Ontario’s   
   long-term-care homes, says health coalition head   
      
   Measures taken to protect those in Ontario’s long-term-care homes have been   
   a failure and the military should once again be sent into the facilities, says   
   the executive director of the Ontario Health Coalition.   
      
   Natalie Mehra said, as the second wave of COVID-19 continues to ravage   
   Ontario, the conditions inside long-term-care homes for the elderly are at an   
   all-time low.   
      
   “What’s very clear is that the measures that were taken in the first wave   
   and, so far, in the second wave are insufficient,” Mehra said. “What   
   we’re seeing is worse than anything I have ever seen in the homes.”   
      
   As of Wednesday morning, 2,729 people have died as a result of COVID-19   
   outbreaks in Ontario care homes.   
      
   A COVID testing backlog and poor enforcement have contributed to an increase   
   of infections and deaths in long-term-care homes, Mehra said.   
      
   Mehra’s comments come despite numerous promises and directives from the   
   province’s Ministry of Long-Term Care since the beginning of the pandemic   
   when Ontario requested the help of the military to deal with the homes.   
      
   In a statement Wednesday evening the province insisted it is doing all it can   
   to stem the second wave.   
      
   As COVID-19 tore through long-term-care facilities earlier this year, the   
   province promised aggressive action, including improved screening of staff,   
   residents and visitors, and ensuring medical supplies are promptly delivered   
   to places in need.   
      
   In November, the government promised to establish a new “gold” standard   
   for care homes in the province by 2024, ensuring residents four hours of care   
   per day. Weeks later it issued a directive stipulating those working or   
   volunteering in care homes    
   must take regular COVID tests.   
      
   But the Ontario Health Coalition says these measures don’t go far enough,   
   calling current staffing levels a crisis. Earlier this month, the coalition   
   released a survey of 88 staff in dozens of long-term-care homes experiencing   
   outbreaks. Sixty-four per    
   cent of those surveyed said they did not have adequate staffing.   
      
   That refrain was repeated by families and supporters who protested on Tuesday   
   outside the Tendercare Living Centre in Toronto, where an outbreak had claimed   
   48 lives as of Tuesday afternoon, prompting urgent calls for more staff.   
      
   Compounding the staffing problem, Mehra said, is that homes have become   
   exhausting and unsafe workplaces, and many employees have chosen to leave   
   their jobs.   
      
   Efforts by the province to solve these problems are failing, she stressed.   
      
   One good idea the province pursued, said Mehra, was banning personal support   
   workers from working at multiple homes, one likely cause of the virus’s   
   spread during the first wave. However, Mehra pointed to “gaping loopholes”   
   in the government’s    
   order, which did not place such limits on those working for temp agencies.   
   Nothing stopped them from working at multiple facilities and this has made the   
   problem worse, she said.   
      
   “As the staffing has fallen into chaos in the homes there’s more agency   
   staff than ever providing care,” she said. “So there’s more staff that   
   are going from home to home to home.”   
      
   Personal protective equipment has been another issue where the government’s   
   measures have fallen short, Mehra said.   
      
   The policy puts the onus on the “most disempowered people” working in care   
   homes to ask for a mask, Mehra said.   
      
   “The homes are rationing them,” she said. “In the large outbreak homes   
   they tell us they don’t have fit-tested N95 masks. There may be N95 masks on   
   site, but they’re locked up.”   
      
   She added that enforcement of the directives has also been lax despite the   
   ongoing issues and mounting death toll. Emergency interventions have been   
   limited as well, she said.   
      
   “Not one home has been fined, not one license has been revoked; there has   
   been no consequence,” she said.   
      
      
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   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)