Last week I wrote about how no one imagined that a pandemic would force the lockdown of assisted and long term care facilities. Many residents became prisoners and confined to their facilities or to their rooms during the pandemic.
As the Province’s Seniors’ Advocate Isobel MacKenzie stated, while there are 147 residents who have died of Covid 19 in long term care facilities, sadly 4,500 residents have died of something else. Those 4,500 people were isolated from their families at their time of death. Surely we can do better. Hopefully an announcement of a new visiting protocol will be part of a report with the results of a survey about visitor restrictions to long-term care and assisted living homes. Called Staying Apart to Stay Safe the report is scheduled for release on Tuesday November 3 at 10:00 a.m. Pacific Time.
The news conference can be watched here in this livestream.
I have written about Ontario deciding that family, comfort and care was important to facility residents. Ontario realized that facility operators had been inconsistent in providing clear policy on visits by caregivers (including families). Ontario is now allowing two designated caregivers to visit at any time including during a covid outbreak subject to “direction from the local public health unit”.
In June in British Columbia care facilities were asked to submit plans to the Province to allow one visitor at a time per resident for one half hour behind plexiglass or outdoors. Each facility has a different management plan, and family members cannot touch or assist the resident in any way. And it’s not easy to see your loved ones.
One Price Tags commenter, David Walker describes his experience with this policy below.
“My in-laws are in a private care facility and have been cut off from family since the spring. Over the summer months we were able to book 20 minute visits outdoors under a gazebo with a floor to ceiling plastic sheet separating the two sides. At more than 3 metres apart and with the sheet in place it was often impossible to hear one another. More recently we sat outside with a microphone and speaker while my father-in-law sat inside with his own microphone and speaker. A large window allowed us to see each other more clearly than we’d been able to through the plastic sheet of summer. My mother-in-law is in a different part of the care facility and she was, at the time, locked down because of a potential COVID exposure. Those brief “visits” have to be booked weeks in advance.”
Mr. Walker also describes the need for public facilities to recognize that senior couples are living longer, and in those last few years of life requiring assisted living may need to housed together, not apart. He noted that government run care facilities are designed for widows.
“With “efficiency” the system places residents according to their needs. That’s wonderful; we don’t fill high care homes with people whose needs are fewer. And it’s absolutely terrible because spouses almost never age at the same rate. Unless the government system can be rapidly expanded with facilities that cater to a variety of residents the future will continue to be bleak for anyone wishing to stay with their spouse or decline without being forced to move. With smoking rates among men dropping and the trend actually reversing (young women are now more likely to be smokers than young men) the future is one where both spouses live to an age where they’ll need help with daily necessities. Single rooms, as promised by the Provincial government during the election, will eventually have to become the exception as men start living almost as long as women. There will be an absolutely massive need for couples accommodation when/if I get into my 80s/90s.”
Is the answer greatly expanded in-home care by governmental and private agencies? Mr. Walker:
“Seniors wishing to stay together will be expected to remain in their homes and have care brought to them rather than them moving to where the care is. In theory an ever increasing level of care could be provided, but going from a few hours per day to round-the-clock nursing simply isn’t practical in private housing. Small apartments don’t have room for a live-in nanny and detached houses have impediments like stairs. Additionally, selling the house is often the only way to afford to live a long life.”
“The upheaval of moving and the trauma of being separated from a spouse of many decades cause significant mental and physical health declines. Forced separation and repeated moves to match care needs is not a future I want for myself and my wife. There must be a way forward that doesn’t produce such nasty side effects or cost upwards of $10,000 per month.”
