Any society should strive to protect all its citizens, especially those who are the most vulnerable. How, then, did Canada find itself in the unenviable position among Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries of having 81% of all reported COVID-19 deaths in Canada occur in Long-Term Care (LTC) homes? Of note, the average among other OECD countries was 38%.
In 2020, near the start of the COVID-19 Pandemic, things got so bad in Ontario and Quebec that those provinces had to call in the army for help. That same army then released a report on the conditions faced by residents in the Ontario LTC homes they worked in. The report is, to put it mildly, disturbing. To put it less mildly, the report is horrifying.
There are a few things to note:
- It is highly likely the current and previous Ontario governments knew conditions were poor inside many of Ontario’s LTC homes before the COVID-19 pandemic;
- It is also highly likely that most, if not all, provinces and territories in Canada were, and continue to be, aware of similar problems within their LTC homes;
- As it was the army who wrote and released the report, and not the Province of Ontario, the government could not stop its release;
- In spite of Premier Ford’s promises to have ‘justice’ and ‘accountability’ , the Auditor General in Ontario released a report over a year later and found that the government did not take obvious and necessary steps after the army report was released in order to help seniors in LTC and to ensure this tragedy would not happen again; and
- To add insult to all this injury, provincial governments in Ontario and across the country are now racing to protect these LTC businesses from lawsuits brought by loved ones on behalf of seniors who died, or were otherwise injured, in care.
This entire story is a tragedy. A shameful tragedy. And thanks to legislation like that described above, it could be a tragedy without ‘justice’ or ‘accountability’.
The older and, in many cases, helpless Canadians living in LTC who died under horrible circumstances deserved better. They deserved our respect and protection.
The Canadians living in LTC care today deserve no less.