Doug Ford's response to the coronavirus has surprised a lot of Ontarians -- including me. Despite that, Bob Hepburn writes, Ford will soon face a day of reckoning:
That day will come when the findings are released by the first of several inquiries being set up to investigate Ontario’s troubled long-term care system. Ontario’s nursing homes have been hot spots of COVID-19 outbreaks, with about 1,700 residents killed and more than 5,000 infected so far.
For decades, far too many of these facilities have been understaffed, underfunded, overcrowded, poorly managed and badly in need of repairs and upgrading.
Ford insists he wants answers to what’s wrong with the system, adding “we need to get this fixed.” He also suggests it’s not his fault because he inherited a mess from the previous Liberal government.
But the fact is that Ford did nothing to improve the situation before the virus hit:
In fact, though, Ford has done little to improve conditions in these facilities since being elected on June 6, 2018. Indeed, in many cases his actions — or inactions — have actually worsened conditions.
And Ontarians have been here before:
That’s what happened to former premier Mike Harris, who in 2001 was riding high in polls until he had to testify at the inquiry into the Walkerton water scandal. On the stand, Harris was questioned about whether his government’s policies were in any way to blame for the tainted water outbreak, which killed seven and sickened more than 2,300 residents in the Walkerton area.
Just three months after testifying, Harris abruptly announced his resignation. One year after the damning Walkerton findings were released in 2002, the Conservatives under then-leader Ernie Eves were trounced by the Liberals in the provincial election.
Ford is facing the grim possibility of having to testify in four — and possibly more — investigations into conditions in the long-term care system.
Provincial ombudsman Paul Dube is launching a probe into how the government handled the system in the pandemic. Ontario’s patient ombud office will probe systemic problems, focusing on staffing levels and more. Long-Term Care Minister Merrilee Fullerton has promised an “independent commission” to study the system and opposition parties are calling for a separate, full public inquiry.
Ford’s record with the long-term care system has been abysmal since he was elected.
First, the Ford government dropped the mandatory annual inspections of all homes that was adopted by the previous Liberal government. Only 2,800 inspections were conducted in 2019, most of them related to specific complaints or to critical conditions.
Second, Ford cut funding increases for the long-term care system to less than the rate of inflation.
Third, there’s been no movement on any of the new long-term care beds that were approved before the 2018 election.
Fourth, Ford made no move to address critical staffing issues, including the shortage of nurses and the low pay and lack of full-time work for personal support workers in these facilities.
Fifth, his government was exceedingly slow in providing protective equipment to staff and testing staff and residents for COVID-19 — with much of it coming only after many deaths.
Sixth, Ford cut some $1 billion over a decade to Toronto Public Health, funds vital for helping to ensure health safety in long-term care residences.
Ford deserves credit in the present. But his past will catch up with him.
Image: National Post
10 comments:
Like trickle-down economics, deregulation is an article of faith among conservatives no matter how disastrous it proves to be on the general welfare. It led to Walkerton under Harris, a listeriosis outbreak under Harper, and thousands of deaths in long-term care under Ford. You can't expect good outcomes for the chickens when the foxes are in charge of the henhouse.
So we'll have enquiries that will make recommendations that will either be ignored or turned into regulations to be repealed by some future conservative government. We've been down this road many times before. Long-term care is a problem across Canada and it won't be fixed until it's brought under the funding formulas of the Canada Health Act.
Cap
I agree, Cap. The long term fix will have to come from the feds.
Any examination of this fiasco Owen, you cannot ignore both Mike Harris' and William Davis' with their for-profit involvement in these long term care facilities. RG
If somebody's making a profit, RG, somebody else has to pay.
Ford isn't going to a damn thing except to try to wriggle off the hook and avoid the unfortunate truth that it s the neocons on the boards of the LTC industry that have been starving the facilities of needed funds so that shareholders can be given dividends.
I would love to be a fly on the wall when Mike Harris phones Dugg to tell him to back off the regulations and demand that the needed money go to the private sector.
All political parties in Ontario are going to wear this one. Ford just had the political will to want the inquiry and answers. Many Premiers aren't going to go down that road.
In B.C. COVID first came into the senior care homes and it went from there. B.C. was lucky because Dr. Bonnie Henry made a few changes, quickly. But the damage had been done. We have had an NDP government for the past couple of years, or 3. but prior to that we had `16 yrs of B.C. Lieberal (conservative) and before that we had the NDP. All governments ignored what went on in senior care homes. The aging population increased and NO government wanted to deal with it or rather spend money on it.
I give Ford credit for what he has done and that includes the inquiry and calling in the military. the day of recokoning will come, but all political leaders for the past 30 years ought to be up there. All of them, not just the Premiers, all party leaders, because had even one party made it their "goal" in life to deal with it or expose it, none of this might have happened. Of course the citizens are to blame as much as the politicians. It wasn't as if we didn't hear about what was going on in these care homes. Even in B.C. we heard of some of the cases which were terrible, exposed by family members.
In my opinion, its just not COVID which has driven this, but the fact that many of the aging baby boomers are headed to these hell holes. The siblings and I agreed some years ago, we were going to take an "exit" before we moved into one of those places.
Society really hasn't cared about old people or children for as long as I can remember and I'm 70.
COVID has exposed how fragile our long term care system is, e.a.f. If we do nothing to improve the system, it will be a moral outrage.
I have no doubt that Harris has Doug's ear, Ben. The question is, "Can he pull Doug's chain?"
There's a bit more to it than possbly dreadful conditions for the inmates, as my mother used to refer to her fellow inhabitants of Northwood LTC in Halifax. She always had a British sense of humour even in her stroke-induced dementia. 53 of Nova Scotia's Covid-19 deaths have occurred there, out of a total of only 61 province-wide.
I had zero quarrel with the way the place was run and where my mother died six years ago, except for two things then and one thing now. The place itself was damn near spotless for a start, an RN on duty on each floor 24/7, and a doctor for the facility as a whole. Food was reasonable, care compassionate enough, and great efforts expended on keeping residents busy, if they wanted to be.
The two poor things were; many of the junior staff had other jobs to make ends meet, and there was no insistence on flu jabs for all staff each year. I complained about the latter, because all the inmates were lined up in a row by Public Health each year and inoculated, so why not staff? Several workers on my mother's floor admitted to me that they didn't get the shot. Pretty damn dumb of management not to make it a condition of employment considering the aged occupants - it should be policy. And now we know double occupancy is not a good thing.
Come Covid-19, staff with other jobs brought the virus in, it's thought. Double occupancy doubled down on trouble, and there was no plan or place to isolate positives. Probably didn't matter by then.
So with almost the best will in the world, Northwood failed. A for-profit LTC I'm sure does not have the resources this place did/does, because income is siphoned off to fill private pockets. I am thus against the latter on principle because it's a health matter, but reality intrudes.
These are some things I believe need to be considered for the future. The facilities are each essentially a public utility, and we have a board for that which regulates everything from gas prices to electricity rates, and does it well. Private ownership then can make sense. Make these places utilities to be regulated with regard to policies, standards and pricing/profit margins. Nation-wide regulation is silly, the feds are not equipped to do it.
BM
However, regulation -- by some government entity -- is needed, BM. The problem of double occupancy is critical. It simply multiplies any the chances of infection. Therefore, vaccination of all of those who reside or work in the facility should be mandatory. Finally, there is the problem of part-time employment. If staff work in more than one facility, that too multiplies the chances of infection.
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