Executive Director Natalie Mehra talks about the new long-term care restrictions on CP24
(December 30, 2021)
By: CP24
To protect the most vulnerable, long-term care homes are now under strict restrictions. Executive Director of the Ontario Health Coalition, Natalie Mehra, speaks on how this affects the people living in these homes, and how families are reacting.
Link to video interview: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=etbkG74fW74
Executive Director Natalie Mehra on Ottawa Morning with Robyn Bresnahan
(December 30, 2021)
By: CBC Ottawa Morning
Starting today, residents in long-term care homes can only get visits from two designated caregivers and won’t be allowed to leave for social reasons. Ontario Health Coalition executive director Natalie Mehra talks about the effect this will have on residents and families in long-term care.
Link to radio interview: https://www.cbc.ca/listen/live-radio/1-100-ottawa-morning/clip/15886519-ontario-pauses-general-visits-long-term-care-homes-amid
Private COVID-19 tests: Filling a need or a threat to public health care?
(January 19, 2022)
By: Blair Crawford, Ottawa Citizen
With Ontario limiting COVID-19 testing to select groups like front-line medical staff, educators and first responders, a private clinic in Kanata is bumping up its capacity to offer a one-day turnaround on PCR tests — for a fee.
Bridlewood Medical Centre on Stonehaven Drive is offering the tests for $225 with results available within four hours. The medical office even bought its own equipment so it can do the analysis on site. Private clinics have been offering COVID testing since the beginning of the pandemic, most frequently for travellers, but there has been renewed interest since testing at public clinics was restricted.
“We’re the only one in Ottawa that I’m aware of that processes samples on site and offer that quick turnaround,” said Kymberly Champagne, practice director at Bridlewood. “That’s why we want people to know about it and to try to ease that backlog that’s happening at all the major labs in the city.”
After running samples through an RNA extraction process, Bridlewood uses a machine called a thermal cycler to test for the presence of COVID-19. The machine can process nine samples at a time and takes just over an hour to provide results.
But critics say the emergence of private testing at clinics like Bridlewood is leading Ontario toward private health care, where only those who can afford it can get tested.
“We have created a two-tier system,” says Ross Sutherland, chairman of the Ontario Health Coalition, an advocacy group that defends public health care in the province.
“We’ve got this health-care crisis and we’ve created a system where people don’t even know whether they’re sick,” Sutherland said. “That seems to me like it should be an essential service. So people who have money can go get tested and people that don’t are having a really difficult time.”
Champagne said Bridlewood was just stepping up to provide a service and offset the strain on public labs.
“I definitely understand that not everyone can afford to do this, but to me it’s more of a cost versus benefit thing. How long can we afford to be off work before we’re losing money that way? Honestly, I wish this was something that the government would fund for our clinic and we didn’t have to charge at all, but that’s just not the case,” she said.
“It’s that line between private and public health care. And we’re doing what we can to lower and mitigate these costs. But, for us, it was important to have this option available locally.”
Ottawa family physician Dr. Nili Kaplan-Myrth said she recently swabbed three generations of one family — the grandmother definitely had COVID-19 and the mother, the grandmother’s primary caregiver, was showing troubling symptoms. Kapan-Myrth said she was shocked when the samples were rejected by a public lab.
“We got a call back saying, ‘We’re throwing these in the garbage. We’re only doing high-risk people. Just tell her to isolate at home,’” Kaplan-Myrth said.
“I was shocked. I’d done all the work for them. If it’s about lab capacity, then what the hell is wrong with the Ontario labs? Why can’t they do it, but private labs can? And why isn’t the Ontario government taking it upon themselves to get every lab possible running these test?”
Ontario has the capacity to test up to 100,000 samples a day, Sutherland said, but hasn’t been doing anywhere near that level. And it’s not just testing where the province is falling down, he said. Despite clear evidence that N95 masks are better at preventing the spread of the highly infectious Omicron variant, the province has been slow to distribute them.
“If the government wanted to do something right away, they could just hand out N95 masks to everyone. That would significantly help. Anyone who’s got $4 or $5 to go out and spend on an N95 mask every couple of days is doing that.
“Unfortunately, the people who don’t have that kind of money, they’re working in grocery stores or even in health-care settings, and they’re walking around with surgical masks or cloth masks. So again, we’ve created this two-tier system for masks like we have for testing. People with money are getting tests and they’re able to go on with their life and they’re getting better defences, better masks, than people who can’t afford it.”
Meanwhile, Champagne says Bridlewood has received positive feedback from clients who’ve used its tests and is prepared to step up its service if demand increases.
“People are happy with the results and how quickly we’re able to turn around the results for this test,” she said. “Obviously, if you’re trying to book one of the public tests, you’re waiting days to get in and then you’re waiting five plus days for your results.”
Link to original article: https://ottawacitizen.com/news/local-news/private-clinic-offers-pcr-tests
‘Honestly, it’s wearing on me’: Pandemic-driven surgical delays create hardship for Durham residents
(January 19, 2022)
By: Reka Szekely, Oshawa This Week
As Ontario once again delays non-essential surgeries due to a spike in COVID-19 cases, it’s left people like Clarington’s Mark Larocque wondering when they’ll get the relief they’ve been waiting for.
The 59-year-old had colon surgery three-and-half years ago due to colitis.
“About four months later a post-surgical hernia started appearing which is where the incision opens up and your intestines start pushing out,” he explains.
As the hernia has grown larger, it has severely limited Larocque’s activities. He now keep his abdomen restrained at all times, airing the skin out a few hours a day to let any blisters or chafing heal.
“It’s like carrying a basketball around in a tube sock,” he said. “It just keeps getting bigger and bigger.”
He was initially referred to a surgeon in Toronto in January 2020 and was told he would have his surgery in eight to 10 months.
“Then the pandemic kicked in so I basically washed any eight-to-10 month dreams away.”
As COVID-19 cases eased, he reached out to his family doctor as the specialist’s wait was now another year due to the backlog. He was connected with a general surgeon in Bowmanville and was scheduled for May 2021 but due to complications from the hernia, which resulted in an infection, Larocque was hospitalized.
“It wouldn’t have mattered because in May, they weren’t doing surgeries anyway.”
He was then put on a new drug regime for his colitis and was finally ready for another surgery appointment.
Now, Larocque is scheduled for surgery in April but he’s worried that the latest round of surgical delays prompted by the rise in Omicron cases will further delay it.
“Currently I have a surgery date of April 13. However, I called his office last week to see how things are going because I’m retired and I could be there in a day’s notice if someone cancels.”
He was told that his surgeon’s office was already cancelling surgeries for the next two weeks.
“That tells me I am F’d again for April and honestly it’s wearing on me,” said Larocque.
There are multiple stories across Durham Region of delayed surgeries deeply impacting residents, including a woman forced to delay fertility treatments as she waits for surgery or a five-year-old child with Autism left waiting for dental surgery for broken teeth.
Kyla Brennan of Port Perry has been waiting two years for the surgical removal of an IUD. It was scheduled for Jan. 11.
“Obviously it has been cancelled, so I continue to wait (with) an IUD no longer serving me … it’s obviously not a major surgery so I’m at the bottom of the list once the ORs reopen as well.”
According to data released by the Canadian Institute for Health Information, there were 560,000 fewer surgeries performed during the COVID-19 pandemic than would normally be performed in Canada. That averages out to roughly 35,000 surgeries per month.
The largest drop in surgeries was during the first wave with 370,000 fewer surgeries while the drop was lower in the second wave. Ontario, Manitoba, Saskatchewan and British Columbia delayed surgeries again in the third wave and in Ontario for a fourth time in early 2022.
At Lakeridge Health, spokesperson Sharon Navarro said the hospital system was ramping up surgeries before the fifth wave of COVID-19 hit.
“While Lakeridge Health continues to navigate capacity and staffing pressures during this fifth wave, we are committed and continue to focus on prioritizing surgical cases, including cancer services, to meet the ongoing needs of the Durham Region community,” she said, adding that emergency surgeries are not impacted and non-emergency and elective surgeries will resume following the direction of the Ministry of Health.
Michael Hurley, president of the Ontario Council of Hospital Unions with CUPE, is part of the Ontario Health Coalition which has called for both immediate and long-term changes to Ontario’s hospital system to address backlogs for surgeries, diagnostics and other patient care.
At Lakeridge Health, CUPE members include registered practical nurses, clerical staff, cleaning and maintenance staff, dietary staff and more.
“Going into the pandemic we had the fewest hospital staff and fewest beds not just of any province in Canada, but any jurisdiction with a developed economy in the world,” said Hurley.
“We’re actually faring worse than quite a few jurisdictions because we don’t have the capacity to respond to meeting the challenges of COVID and the daily needs of people who need surgery or urgent diagnostics.”
To address immediate needs, the health coalition is asking that the military be called in to help staff hospitals and long-term care homes as well as fast-tracking licensing for internationally trained health care workers and waiving licensing fees for retired health care workers willing to re-enter the workforce during the pandemic.
Longer term, Hurley said internal surveys show hospital staff are burned out and ready to leave the health care field.
“A lack of staff puts (workers) in a situation where they feel they are being inadequate, they have not provided the care they feel the patients deserve and they realize the hospital management accepts that, the provincial government accepts that.”
He believes Ontario needs to improve not only staffing levels and beds per capita to catch up following the pandemic, but to improve working conditions for existing health care workers including removing caps on pay increases, stopping the use of agency staff who are less likely to work undesirable shifts including evenings and weekends and increasing the proportion of workers that are full-time.
Meanwhile for Larocque, waiting for his surgery has compounded the hardship caused by the pandemic. He lost his mother to an outbreak at the Sunnycrest Nursing Homes in Whitby.
“I know there are people that are a lot worse off, post cancer and things like that but this is an ugly one.”
Link to original article: https://www.durhamregion.com/news-story/10555931–honestly-it-s-wearing-on-me-pandemic-driven-surgical-delays-create-hardship-for-durham-residents/
‘A warm hug’: West Niagara visiting volunteer program tackles isolation with care
(January 18, 2022)
By: Luke Edwards, Grimsby Lincoln News
They say chicken soup is good for the soul. The staff and volunteers at Rose Cottage would agree — to an extent.
In their experience, it’s been any of the soups whipped up by August Restaurant, alongside the homemade breads and activity books — and perhaps most importantly, the cheerful faces of the people who deliver said items to the organization’s West Niagara clients. During a two-year span that has turned socialization, visiting and face-to-face interactions into a possibly dangerous interaction, area residents with life-limiting illnesses and their caregivers have been among the hardest hit, and the most hidden.
“I think people do struggle and especially in situations where you have a lone caregiver with a client … in the past, we would be able to go in and give them an afternoon a week where they could go shopping or they could go and have a nap,” said Lorraine Hulley, who took over as executive director of Rose Cottage Visiting Volunteers late last year following Sherry Cain’s retirement. “They’re often the unsung heroes of this pandemic because you don’t have people to provide that respite as much as you did pre-COVID.”
Rose Cottage offers a variety of supports for people with life-limiting illnesses and their families and caregivers. One important service is the weekly visits, which historically gave caregivers a brief period off from the exhausting work of looking after a loved one while also giving the person with the illness another person to talk to. Rose Cottage’s volunteers are also uniquely trained and could detect potential issues during visits that the person and their caregiver may not have noticed.
Like so many other agencies, Rose Cottage switched to virtual visits or phone calls when required. Outdoor meetings were set up when possible. Despite the challenges, Hulley said, they persevered.
“Our volunteers are so fabulous at caring for their clients. They’re calling them more frequently than they would normally be doing,” she said. “Someone described it as a warm hug.”
Rose Cottage also offers a legacy service, which allows clients to share their memories and life experiences with a volunteer, who helps craft it into a keepsake book for the client and their family. That has continued throughout, even crossing the Atlantic Ocean.
“We actually did a legacy project for a gentleman over in England … and the gentleman couldn’t have been happier. I think he ordered about a dozen books for family overseas,” Hulley said.
The pandemic has highlighted some of the issues older people and those with life-limiting illnesses face. Just last week, the Ontario Health Coalition demanded action on Ontario’s “long-term-care and hospital crisis.”
“The failures at this point in the pandemic are inexcusable,” said OHC executive director Natalie Mehra. “75,000 long-term-care residents have been locked down almost a month with their fundamental human rights overridden in a way that no one else in society has suffered.”
A report last August from the Canadian Institute for Health Information found that one in nine newly admitted LTC patients could have been cared for at home with the right supports.
Hulley sees the work Rose Cottage does as a way to alleviate those issues by keeping people out of a costly hospital setting and freeing up hospice spaces that are quite limited in Niagara.
“With COVID and what’s gone on in long-term-care, I think people are trying to stay home as long as they can. And that’s certainly where an organization like Rose Cottage comes in because we provide that non-medical supportive care that isn’t really possible within the home care system by and large, because time is always a factor.”
Hulley said Rose Cottage, which receives half of its funding from fundraising, has been fortunate to receive community support from August Restaurant, Grimsby Ford and others, but could always use more and the agency is always accepting new volunteers. For more information, call 289-566-9588 or visit rosecottagevolunteers.com.
Link to original article: https://www.niagarathisweek.com/community-story/10554198–a-warm-hug-west-niagara-visiting-volunteer-program-tackles-isolation-with-care/
Coalition calls for action on health-care staffing
(January 14, 2022)
By: PJ Wilson, North Bay Nugget
To call what is happening in the Ontario health care system “a crisis is not an overstatement,” advocates for health-care workers and patients said Friday in a virtual news conference.
The advocates, representatives of the Ontario Health Coalition, CUPE, the Ontario Council of Hospital Unions, the Ontario Federation of Labour and the Ontario Nurses’ Association, said emergency measures are needed to address the staffing crisis.
Staffing, Natalie Mehra, executive director of the Ontario Health Coalition said, has “crumbled,” and is at the lowest levels ever seen.
“The number of outbreaks has increased dramatically,” with at least 390 outbreaks declared at long-term care homes in the province, and “literally thousands of residents and patients” are affected.
In the past week, she said, 1,319 long-term care residents have been infected with COVID-19, and at least 38 have died of their exposures.
At the same time, staffing levels are falling.
“We are not on the cusp of a health-care crisis,” Mehra said. “We are in a health-care crisis.”
Staffing levels are so extreme, she said, with hundreds of workers off that even minimal care is, in some cases, impossible.
“If this is not a crisis, I don’t know what is,” she said.
There is “a desperate need” for the Doug Ford government to step up and make immediate changes, prime among them the repeal of Bill 124.
Bill 124, emergency legislation imposed after the global COVID-19 pandemic was declared, limits wage increases to a maximum of one per cent compensation over three years, primarily affecting nurses, nurse practitioners and health care professionals.
“It limits compensation for front-line workers,” particularly hitting women hardest, Katha Fortier, assistant to the national president of Unifor, said.
Fortier said health-care workers have been consistently losing money because of the effects of inflation, with the province saying for 2021 alone the inflation rate was more than four per cent.
The emergency order supersedes negotiated agreements, Fortier said, and instead of receiving deserved pandemic pay, they are losing ground.
Sadra Caleta, of Advocates for Long-term Care Reform, said workers are suffering from exhaustion after working for two years under pandemic conditions, with “a workload so heavy . . . they have to pick and choose what care to deliver.”
She said workers get no breaks, and “are run off their feet from the time they walk through the door until they leave for the day.”
They are denied days off, she said, and in many cases are unable to even help residents bathe or shower. Some residents in the province, she said, have not had a bath or shower since Christmas.
There is no time for physical activity, physiotherapy or other services, she said, and residents “are sitting in their room 24/7 with nothing to do.”
Among measures the advocates called for are deployment of military teams to facilities in crisis, establishment of rapid response teams, creation of a voluntary health human resource emergency deployment system, require hospitals, long-term care homes and home care providers to provide and implement use of proper personal protection equipment, and the repeal of Bill 124.
Link to original article: https://www.nugget.ca/news/coalition-calls-for-action-on-health-care-staffing
Cri d’alarme du secteur de la santé ontarien, plongé dans une crise « irréversible »
(January 14, 2022)
By: Theodore Doucet, Radio Canada
La Coalition ontarienne de la santé (OHC) réclame un « déploiement militaire immédiat » en raison de la virulence de la vague de COVID-19 actuelle et de l’épuisement professionnel, qui provoquent un manque de personnel « jamais vu » dans les résidences et dans les hôpitaux.
L’OHC dresse un portrait “terrible” de “l’effondrement du personnel” dans les hôpitaux, dans les unités de soins de longue durée et dans les services de soins à domicile et réclame des mesures immédiates de la part du gouvernement de Doug Ford.
Des patients et des résidents des établissements de santé ontariens “sont abandonnés à leur sort” et “barricadés dans leur chambre” par du personnel débordé qui va parfois jusqu’à bloquer les portes avec des meubles pour empêcher certains patients de sortir afin d’éviter qu’ils se perdent ou se blessent pendant qu’ils sont sans supervision.
Certains patients ne peuvent obtenir ni eau ni nourriture.
Certains n’ont pas eu droit à une douche depuis Noël, selon les témoignages entendus lors d’une conférence de presse à laquelle a pris part un vaste éventail de représentants des professions médicales.
« La diminution du nombre d’employés sur place a de profondes répercussions sur les soins prodigués aux patients. »
— Une citation de Natalie Mehra, directrice de l’OHC
Le secteur de la santé ontarien demande au gouvernement de créer des équipes d’intervention rapide ainsi qu’un système de déploiement d’urgence des ressources humaines pour recruter des professionnels de la santé.
“Ces derniers jours, le nombre d’éclosions dans les établissements de santé a augmenté de façon spectaculaire”, a ajouté Mme Mehra, ce qui entraîne un absentéisme considérable ainsi que l’alourdissement de la tâche du personnel restant, selon elle.
À l’heure actuelle, plus de la moitié des foyers de soins de longue durée (326 sur 626) ont déclaré être frappés par une éclosion de COVID-19, de même que 217 services hospitaliers, selon les données provinciales.
“La résilience qui restait dans les foyers est partie en fumée”, continue Mme Mehra.
“Un hôpital après l’autre, on signale que le personnel est malade. Les cliniques ont été fermées. Même les services d’urgence ont été fermés de nuit ou des jours entiers pour se redéployer aux soins intensifs.”
Du recrutement en cours, selon le ministère de la Santé
“Omicron a entraîné (…) des problèmes de personnel dans le secteur des soins de santé en raison de l’augmentation rapide des infections et de l’exposition” à la COVID-19, reconnaît par courriel Alexandra Hilkene, porte-parole de la ministre de la Santé de l’Ontario.
Interrogée sur l’éventualité d’une sollicitation des militaires, elle réfère à un article de La Presse canadienne qui indique que les Forces armées canadiennes manquent elles aussi de personnel médical, sans répondre davantage.
En réponse à la pression subie par les hôpitaux et les foyers de soins de longue durée, le gouvernement a récemment autorisé les infirmières formées à l’étranger à y travailler. Près de 1200 personnes ont “exprimé leur intérêt” à participer à ce programme, selon Mme Hilkene. Des fonds ont aussi été investis pour attirer plus de personnes dans les formations aux métiers d’infirmières.
Par ailleurs, le ministère de la Santé indique avoir ajouté “plus de 6700 travailleurs et employés de la santé dans la province en près de deux ans” et cherche “à recruter 6000 travailleurs de la santé supplémentaires avant la fin mars 2022”.
La dotation en personnel, “un problème de longue date”
Plusieurs intervenants du secteur de la santé estiment que le gouvernement Ford a fait preuve d’inaction et critiquent son refus de répondre aux alertes lancées par le secteur pour prévenir le “préjudice irréversible” de “l’urgence” actuelle de la dotation en personnel.
“C’est un problème de longue date”, a constaté Katha Fortier, adjointe au président national d’Unifor. Elle souligne le faible taux de rétention des travailleurs de la santé, en raison notamment des meilleurs salaires offerts dans d’autres juridictions, notamment aux États-Unis.
L’Ontario doit alors attirer la main-d’œuvre alors que celle en place affronte un délitement depuis une dizaine d’années, estime-t-elle. “En signe de bonne foi, le gouvernement devrait annuler immédiatement le projet de loi 124” (qui plafonne depuis 2019 l’augmentation salariale dans le secteur public à 1 % par an) et offrir de meilleurs salaires.
En ce qui concerne les hôpitaux, “tout indique qu’il y aura un exode après la pandémie” et que l’Ontario n’a pas de plan de recrutement, peste Michael Hurley, vice-président régional du Syndicat canadien de la fonction publique (SCFP).
M. Hurley dresse un portrait sombre de l’état d’esprit des travailleurs du secteur : “Deux ans de quarts de travail prolongés, pas de vacances, pas d’équipement de protection individuelleEPI dont ils ont besoin. Ils sont très affligés de constater que des patients atteints de cancer, par exemple, voient leur opération être retardée.”
Link to original article: https://ici.radio-canada.ca/nouvelle/1854355/ontario-health-coalition-rise-sante-foyers-hopital
‘Spiralling crisis’ as Hamilton records 101 outbreaks and increasing COVID hospitalizations
(January 14, 2022)
By: Joanna Frketich, Hamilton Spectator
Hamilton has more than 100 active COVID outbreaks as the city continues to be one of Ontario’s hardest hit in the fifth wave.
Hospitalizations soared to 302 on Friday, including 40 in the intensive care unit. That’s up from 256 COVID patients Monday and 220 on Jan. 4. The highest number of admissions before the Omicron variant hit was 161. That was at the height of the third wave in April.
At the same time, Hamilton Health Sciences (HHS) and St. Joseph’s Healthcare have a combined total of 888 staff self isolating — up from 759 on Monday.
The hospital networks also have 21 ongoing outbreaks between them, with more than 227 cases and two deaths.
The result is an increasing number of patients being transferred out of the region. Five patients were transferred as of Friday, which is a measure of the increasing strain on hospitals in Hamilton, Burlington, Niagara, Brant, Haldimand and Norfolk. Normally they avoid residents leaving Ontario West by spreading out the load between them.
In addition, HHS will shut down the West End Urgent Care Clinic on Main Street West Monday at 10 p.m. for up to eight weeks so it can redeploy the staff.
The Ontario Health Coalition calls it a “spiralling crisis” in hospitals, home care and seniors’ homes.
“In hospitals we are seeing profound unprecedented staffing crises,” executive director Natalie Mehra said in a statement Thursday. “Hospitalizations are increasing significantly.”
The coalition called on the government Friday to bring in emergency measures to address health care staffing shortages, particularly in long-term care.
“Staffing is crumbling entirely in some homes,” said Mehra. “We are hearing devastating accounts of residents in decline from inadequate feeding, dehydration, lack of basic care.”
Of Hamilton’s 101 active outbreaks Friday, 37 were in seniors’ homes. The city’s largest outbreak was at Heritage Green Nursing Home in Stoney Creek where 85 have tested positive — a jump from 50 on Thursday.
Another large outbreak was at The Wellington Nursing Home on central Mountain where 58 have been infected.
“The general public needs to understand the gravity of this wave of the pandemic,” said Mehra. “Omicron is not mild … The health system is overwhelmed and the consequences of unfettered community spread of the virus are disproportionately borne by the elderly and health care workers.”
More than one dozen organizations joined the health coalition’s call for emergency staffing measures, including the Ontario Nurses’ Association, the Ontario Council of Hospital Unions, the Ontario Federation of Labour, the Ontario Medical Students Association and the Ontario Public Service Employees Union.
“Our province’s health care system is not on the brink of crisis, it is in crisis,” stated the call to action. “It is not an overstatement to describe a number of facilities and services as being in staffing collapse.”
Link to full article (note: the article is behind a paywall): https://www.thespec.com/news/hamilton-region/2022/01/14/hamilton-omicron-variant-covid-19-latest-news.html?rf
Most COVID deaths still among older Ontarians
(January 14, 2022)
By: Antonella Artuso, Toronto Sun
Eleven nursing home residents were among the 41 additional deaths reported Friday in Ontario.
Over the past 14 days, 70 women and 55 men aged 80 or older have died from COVID-19 in the province, although not all were long-term care (LTC) residents.
And in a continuing trend, there were 58 deaths among men aged 60 to 79 years-old over that same time period, almost double the 29 deaths in women of that age cohort.
There were nine deaths in men and four in women between the ages of 40 to 59.
The number of lives lost during the pandemic now stands at 10,522.
The province is considering breaking down the data to show if an individual died from COVID-19 or another cause while testing positive for the virus.
There were 326 long-term care (LTC) homes in outbreak with 2,146 resident cases and 3,830 staff cases.
Ontario has mandated LTC staff be vaccinated and limited visits to essential caregivers and paused non-essential outings by residents.
While the province reported 10,964 new cases of COVID-19 Friday, the testing strategy has changed and public health officials believe the number of active cases is much higher.
The number of COVID-related patients in intensive care was 527, a threshold that at the beginning of the pandemic would have overwhelmed hospital capacity which has since been expanded.
However, the Ontario Health Coalition (OHC), joined by a number of groups including unions representing health care workers, said the province’s hospitals, LTC facilities and home care services faced critical staffing shortages.
“Provincial and federal governments must immediately deploy military teams to facilities in crisis, as military capacity permits,” the OHC said in a joint statement. “The Ontario government must set up rapid response teams and immediately create a voluntary health human resource emergency deployment system to sign up health care professionals to help from across the health care system and channel them into hospitals, LTC homes, retirement homes and home care in crisis. Health care providers cannot be left on their own to determine whether they are in crisis.”
Link to original article: https://torontosun.com/news/provincial/most-covid-deaths-still-among-older-ontarians
Ontario cabinet minister Rod Phillips to resign, not run in next election
(January 14, 2022)
By: Jeff Gray & Karen Howlett, Globe & Mail
Ontario’s Minister of Long-Term Care, Rod Phillips, is stepping down and leaving politics, even as a massive wave of COVID-19 outbreaks again threatens vulnerable residents of the province’s nursing homes, where nearly 4,000 have died with the virus.
The sudden departure, announced on the social-media platform Twitter late Friday afternoon, comes just over a year after the 56-year-old Mr. Phillips – once a contender for the Ontario Progressive Conservative Party leadership – was forced to step down as finance minister after he defied pandemic guidelines and vacationed on the Caribbean island of St. Barts.
He was brought back into cabinet in June and spearheaded new legislation meant to improve long-term care homes, which have been ravaged by COVID-19, and where some residents faced appalling conditions and neglect.
On Friday, with the province’s homes listing more new virus outbreaks than ever before and deaths again on the rise, he said he told Premier Doug Ford and PC Party president Brian Patterson he was resigning and would leave his post as MPP for Ajax, east of Toronto, next month, before the general election in June.
He said the departure would allow Mr. Ford to appoint a new minister and a new PC candidate to be chosen for the riding. Mr. Phillips, who did not respond to a request for comment, said in his Twitter statement that he would seek new opportunities in the private sector.
“I want to recognize the strong leadership of Premier Ford. Through what is undoubtedly the greatest challenge of our lifetimes, the global COVID-19 pandemic, he has always put first what is best for the people of Ontario,” Mr. Phillips said in his statement. “I remain confident Ontarians will re-elect his government in the upcoming election.”
During his brief tenure as Long-Term Care Minister, Mr. Phillips oversaw a massive program to start building new homes and refurbish the province’s aging facilities.
Mr. Phillips announced his departure just as the Omicron variant of the coronavirus pushed the chronically short-staffed long-term care sector into crisis again. According to Ontario’s latest situation report, 411 of the province’s 626 homes are battling an active outbreak of COVID-19.
“This is the highest number we have ever had, and we haven’t even reached the peak,” Samir Sinha, director of geriatrics at the University Health Network and Sinai Health System in Toronto, said in an interview. “It’s the ultimate letdown to have one of the government’s smartest ministers put in charge of tackling this file resign on a day when Ontario has never seen so many long-term care homes in a COVID-19 outbreak.”
The highly contagious Omicron variant has sickened 2,140 residents of long-term care and 3,830 staff members. Since mid-December, 64 residents have died of COVID-19, bringing the total to 3,893.
Several other MPPs have said they plan not to run again. Such announcements typically come in the months before a provincial campaign. Unlike Mr. Phillips, most stay on in their ridings until their replacement takes over.
The Premier’s Office issued a statement on Twitter thanking Mr. Phillips for his “tireless work” as an MPP and minister of long-term care. Spokespeople for the Premier did not respond to questions about who would replace Mr. Phillips in the portfolio.
Mr. Ford’s office announced late Friday that his Government House Leader and Minister of Legislative Affairs, Paul Calandra, would also take on the long-term care portfolio.
Ontario Liberal Leader Steven Del Duca said Mr. Phillips’ departure as long-term care minister in the midst of another COVID-19 crisis is a “total abdication of leadership and a sign of pure chaos in Ford’s Conservative Party.” He said Ontarians “have felt abandoned by Doug Ford and his government, and Minister Phillips’s abrupt departure is just another example of that.”
NDP deputy leader and long-term care critic Sara Singh said the rise of Omicron was putting residents at risk just as Mr. Phillips decided to leave, noting that he was appointed during the pandemic.
“This is not the first time the government has changed long-term care ministers when residents were in the middle of a crisis, and people are worried seniors will fall through the cracks again while the Ford government is in disarray,” Ms. Singh said in a statement.
Several advocacy groups led by the Ontario Health Coalition called on the government on Friday to introduce emergency measures, including deploying teams from the Canadian Armed Forces, to address a critical and growing staffing crisis in long-term care homes as well as hospitals.
Mr. Phillips, who bowed out of the 2018 leadership contest and supported Ford rival Caroline Mulroney, was chief of staff for Toronto mayor Mel Lastman in the early 2000s, an aide to former PC cabinet minister Elizabeth Witmer and a campaign aide for then PC leader John Tory’s 2007 provincial election bid. A former CEO of Shepell-fgi (now Morneau Shepell), he was appointed president and CEO of the Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corp. in 2011 and later served as chairman of Postmedia. He was first elected as PC MPP for Ajax in 2018.
Link to original article: https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/article-ontario-cabinet-minister-rod-phillips-to-resign-not-run-in-next/
2021 Mayor’s honour list released
(December 31, 2021)
By: Melanie Irwin, Blackburn News
![Sarnia Mayor Mike Bradley gives a state-of-the-city address to members of Sarnia's Seaway Kiwanis Club. January 7, 2020. Photo by Melanie Irwin]()
Sarnia Mayor Mike Bradley gives a state-of-the-city address to members of Sarnia’s Seaway Kiwanis Club. January 7, 2020. Photo by Melanie Irwin
Sarnia’s Mayor has released a 2021 honour list which highlights the work of 13 individuals and groups.
The mayor’s honour list was established in 1981 by the late mayor Marceil Saddy as a tribute to the unsung people and groups who’ve been instrumental in improving the quality of life or making a significant contribution to the City of Sarnia and Lambton County.
Mike Bradley said this year marks the 40th anniversary of the list, as there was no list presented in 1988.
Jane Anema is being recognized for serving the community through her role as executive director of the Sarnia Community Foundation for the past 13 years. Anema is retiring in early 2022.
Leila Boushy is being commended for decades of volunteer work. She has served as president of the Sarnia Lambton Folks Arts Multicultural Council and as a citizen officer for the IODE Sarnia Lambton Municipal Chapter. Bradley said Boushy has been a “driving force in welcoming new citizens and supporting and inspiring youth and seniors in the community.”
The large group who contributed to the much needed 100th anniversary upgrades to Veterans’ Park is being honoured. Bradley said without the immediate support from the individuals, businesses, and organizations, the upgrades could not have been completed in such a quick time frame.
Brenda Dunn is being recognized for her work as a leader of the 23rd Sarnia Beaver Colony through Scouts Canada. Bradley said over 200 children have been members of her colony in the past 16 years.
Robert Hart is commended for providing his time for over 30 years to help many people in the community. Hart is a volunteer driver for the Canadian Cancer Society and has been transporting patients to Victoria Hospital in London for 32 years. He also served as a Big Brother and has volunteered in the soup kitchen at St. Giles Church.
Elaine Hayter is being honoured for being a “tireless advocate and fundraiser for the Kidney Foundation” for over three decades. Hayter is the senior development manager at the Sarnia Lambton Kidney Foundation. Bradley said the local chapter received three awards from the Ontario Branch of the Kidney Foundation of Canada this year and “in typical Elaine Fashion,” Bradley said, “she took no credit and praised the volunteers.”
Dave LeClair is being recognized for 40 years of volunteering with the Sarnia Multiple Sclerosis Society. He was recently honoured with a volunteer fundraising award from Multiple Sclerosis of Canada for Ontario and Nunavut.
A Sarnia group known as “100 Scarves” is being commended. The group has contributed hand knitted scarves, hats, and mittens, free to anyone in need through Scarf Project Canada. Bradley said over 1,000 items were placed on the fence in front of the Lawrence House in 2021.
Michelle Parks and the Sarnia Tampon Tuesday Chapter are being honoured for successfully raising funds and collecting donations to provide menstrual products in the community. Parks was the driving force in convincing Sarnia council to permanently provide and dispense menstrual products in city facilities.
Annabelle Rayson is being recognized for organizing the Sarnia Shoebox Project for the past four years. Shoeboxes filled with essentials, like toiletries and socks, and small gifts are delivered with a warm greeting, or message of support, to women in need.
Shirley Roebuck is being commended for her work as a local healthcare advocate. Roebuck is the local chairperson of the Ontario Health Coalition and also sits on the provincial board of the Ontario Health Coalition.
Mark Roehler is being honoured for his dedication to safety in the workplace. Roehler is the longtime chair of the “Steps for Life” committee in Sarnia. The committee raises funds for the “Threads of Life” charity, which offers peer support and connections for people who have lost loved ones in the workplace or from occupational disease.
Tanya Tamilio is recognized for her work through the Centre Communautaire Francophone de Sarnia Lambton, where she holds the roles of president and volunteer. Bradley said Tamilio was instrumental in having the city receive its French language designation at the provincial level. He said the designation will see Service Ontario and other provincial services offered in French.
Bradley said this year’s list was treated as a regular year and when the pandemic has concluded proper recognition will be given to those who helped bring our community to a better place.
It is hoped a reception for both the 2020 and 2021 honourees will be held in 2022.
Link to original article: https://blackburnnews.com/sarnia/sarnia-news/2021/12/31/2021-mayors-honour-list-released/
‘My wife and I have been doing the work of seven people’: Close contacts limit PSW availability for London, Ont. man
(December 27, 2021)
By: Brent Lale, CTV News London
It’s been a stressful and frustrating holiday season for Jeff Preston.
The London, Ont. man with a rare form of Muscular Dystrophy requires around the clock care to function as a human being.
“Going to the washroom, eating, getting food, and help getting rolled over in my sleep,” says Preston, an assistant professor of Disability Studies at Western University.
During the holidays, his care team was reduced as people took vacation, and went out of town.
Over the past three days, he’s lost half of his available Personal Support Worker (PSW) staff due to close contacts with COVID-19 positive cases.
“So far they’ve tested negative but we don’t know if they’re going to turn into a positive,” says Preston.
“It’s been myself and my wife, Clara just tried to survive a little bit last few days during the work of what is typically managed by about seven people.”
Preston’s situation is something that comes as no surprise to Peter Bergmanis of the Ontario Health Coalition.
“My heart goes out to Jeff and there’s some 700,000 people in this province that rely on homecare,” says Bergmanis.
“It wasn’t very good before the pandemic and we’re now two years in and the government although making some sort of tinkering around the edges has done really nothing to address the staffing crisis that they face.”
Bergmanis says the true crux of the staffing situation is poor working conditions and low wages.
“They don’t even get the benefit of knowing whether the patient they’re seeing is actually free of COVID. I’m not surprised Jeff finds himself this way,” Bergmanis. “COVID-19 could decimate the whole industry.”
With more than 2,300 active COVID-19 cases in Middlesex-London, there will be thousands of close contacts. The last report from LSHC had more than 50 employees testing positive for COVID-19, which means there will be plenty more being considered close contacts.
The acting medical officer of health for the Middlesex-London Health Unit (MLHU) Dr. Alex Summers tells CTV News that in order to keep the required staff in the health care sector, they can use something called work self-isolation when “critically necessary.”
“What that means is that somebody is essentially self-isolating at home, but they’re able to go specifically into work, after undergoing a testing protocol,” says Summers.
“They have to be fully vaccinated, they have to have no symptoms, most importantly, it’s something that we want to use as rarely as possible because it increases the potential risk for transmission.”
Preston has been limiting his contacts and rarely sees family and friends. He has missed out on consecutive Christmas and New Year’s Eve celebrations because he says it would be “very bad” for him if he caught COVID-19.
He says people have been weighing their own risks of contracting the virus, but wishes the majority of the public would go back to the early days of the pandemic and think about all of society and not just themselves.
“Everyone’s burned out,” says Preston.
“My staff have been working harder than ever with less support and with less time off than ever, because there are no reinforcements coming down the pipeline. It’s about a system barely managing before the pandemic. We’re seeing the strain in the hospital system, and now in the private care industry as well.”
He will be getting a few staff members back over the next few days, but admits the past few days have been difficult.
Link to original article: https://www.iheartradio.ca/virginradio/london/news-trending/my-wife-and-i-have-been-doing-the-work-of-seven-people-close-contacts-limit-psw-availability-for-london-ont-man-1.16795656
Province will renew Scarborough nursing homes where COVID-19 took scores of lives
(December 17, 2021)
By: Mike Adler, Toronto.com
Ontario’s Progressive Conservative government has approved upgrades and expansions for Scarborough nursing homes whose residents suffered devastating COVID-19 outbreaks.
At Altamont Care Community, where 53 residents died of the disease in 2020, Long-Term Care Minister Rod Phillips on Dec. 10 announced a new nursing home on the property would have 448 beds instead of the current 159.
And after a six-storey addition, Midland Gardens Care Community, where 43 residents died, will have 21 new and 299 upgraded beds.
“When these projects are completed, two new long-term-care homes in Scarborough will provide a safe, modern, comfortable place for residents to call home, near their family and friends,” Phillips added in a release.
In earlier announcements, the government announced two new and 254 upgraded beds at Tendercare Living Centre, where 81 COVID-19 deaths occurred, and 128 new beds at Scarborough’s Hellenic Home, where 21 people died.
Three of the planned upgrades were criticized by the Ontario Health Coalition because — apart from the Hellenic Home, run by a charity — they are tied to 30-year license renewals for companies running nursing homes for profit.
“They’re essentially taking public money and making private profit from it,” said Ross Sutherland, the coalition’s chairperson.
The group argues non-profit homes provide better care and there’s no reason for-profit homes should exist, but the government disagrees, said Sutherland, charging this is due to “an ideological bent, and it’s not based on science.”
A coalition news release last month quoted Doris Wai, whose grandmother died during the 2021 Tendercare outbreak, suggesting the home’s owners don’t deserve a renewal: “They failed to provide the necessities for life and the craziest thing is that they are being rewarded for it,” she said.
Altamont, the Hellenic Home and Tendercare are what the province calls C-bed nursing homes, built to the standards of 1972. Such homes, because of features such as three or four-bed ward rooms, often found isolating residents who contracted COVID-19 especially difficult.
Canadian Forces personnel were sent to Altamont after conditions at the home deteriorated during the outbreak.
Midland Gardens is considered a B home, ahead of 1972 standards but behind contemporary ones.
Sienna Senior Living, which owns Altamont and Midland Gardens, said those homes, when rebuilt, will include only private and semiprivate rooms.
“Gathering spaces will reflect a homelike setting and outdoor areas will provide the opportunity to connect with nature. From both a safety and holistic health perspective, seniors will thrive in our new communities,” the company said in a Dec. 13 statement.
Altamont, to be renamed Altamont Scarborough, will combine 204 upgraded beds in a new building with a previous allocation of 85 new beds and 159 upgraded beds, Sienna said.
Sienna said Midland Gardens will be “completely retrofitted” and will have a total of 320 beds, compared to 299 today, plus 54 new seniors’ apartments, “in order to provide more affordable housing options in Scarborough.”
First phases of construction are expected to start at Midland Gardens in fall 2022 and at Altamont in spring 2023.
Both nursing homes will be rebuilt as part of “a campus of care” with Scarborough Health Network, an arrangement which will “integrate the homes into the broader health-care system and ensures residents have access to the care they need,” the province said.
Link to original article: https://www.thestar.com/local-toronto-scarborough/news/2021/12/17/province-will-renew-scarborough-nursing-homes-where-covid-19-took-scores-of-lives.html
If we move together, we can win. But we need to keep the pressure up.