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a name="1"> Deaths of Seniors During Pandemic The Need for Peoples' Empowerment in Health Care, Seniors' Care and GovernanceOne of the salient features of the fight to contain the COVID-19 pandemic is the necessity for workers to play a leading role in providing the serious problems the people face with solutions. On April 13, Canada's Chief Public Health Officer Dr. Theresa Tam reported that nearly half of the 760 coronavirus-related deaths in Canada have taken place in long-term care homes. She said that she expects that the number of deaths in long-term care will continue to increase even as the pandemic growth rate slows down. Meanwhile, residents of seniors' care homes have been abandoned and families left in the dark as to their fate. While initial outbreaks took place in British Columbia, they have spread across Canada and Quebec. Health care workers in seniors' homes are also disproportionately affected, with 600 infected in Ontario alone.
This crisis has now revealed the crimes committed by governments at all levels when they claim that cut-backs to social programs and privatization are good for the economy. A CBC News investigation found that only nine long-term care homes in Ontario received a so-called resident quality inspection, or RQI, in 2019. The government says it did 2,800 inspections in 2019 but that most were related to complaints or critical incidents, CBC reports. The RQIs are meant to be annual more proactive, comprehensive, unannounced inspections rather than the reactive inspections that follow complaints or particular incidents. The province says on its website that each care home undergoes an annual inspection that includes interviews with residents, family members and staff "as well as direct observations of how care is being delivered." This is simply not true. And this is precisely the problem across the country where words and deeds are never one. On paper everything is in conformity with laws and regulations but the practice is something else. This is where governments show that they are unfit to rule. They make sure nobody is held to account and especially not themselves because when it comes to the anti-social offensive they are the ones who have been creating the conditions which cause problems, as they serve narrow private interests. It is truly criminal, which is why now no government at any level is talking about holding any government to account for the deaths and suffering that are taking place. Far from it, there is a pretense that everything is being done to quickly deal with the issue even if it means sending in the army rangers to do the job. Media are full of articles suggesting that the pandemic is "shining a light" on the appalling and inhumane conditions of seniors' care. It is all part of a disinformation campaign to draw attention away from the fact that, in the face of the mounting death toll of seniors in care, the solutions proposed by health care workers are nonetheless being swept aside.
The problem is of the governments' own making because these governments serve narrow private interests. This is why they do not listen to the workers and what they say they need. To divert attention from what should be done about it will also not do. Governments have year in and year out claimed the authority to starve the health care system of funds in the name of prosperity, when in fact they take more and more out of social programs to privatize health care and seniors' care and make sure narrow private concerns get paid from the public purse. They permit the privatization of seniors' care homes knowing full well the rotten treatment seniors get there. This is not a new problem. It is exacerbated by the COVID-19 problem. These governments use their positions of power and privilege and the mafia cartel party system to make sure nobody can be held to account. This is the essence of the matter -- that unless the workers themselves become worker politicians and make the laws which favour them, this wrecking will continue. It is reported that Ontario Premier Doug Ford's own mother-in-law is a resident at West Park Long-Term Care Centre in Toronto, owned by the monopoly Extendicare, where five residents have died from COVID-19 and ten other residents and 14 staff members have tested positive. A resident in the home told news media that she cried for help for one and a half hours one night and no one came. She reported that at night there was one nurse to provide medications for 120 residents on two floors. During the day, one personal support worker is taking care of 20 residents, and one nurse as many as 40, one-third the usual number of staff which is itself an understaffed quota of the personnel needed. The government says it has done "absolutely everything we possibly can," including finally opening up testing criteria to long-term care patients and front-line health care workers. In a media briefing, Ford stated, "We could look backwards and point out every single little item. I'm sure there's areas in this whole pandemic that are could've, should've, would've." It is a criminal response to dismiss such things as could'ves, should'ves, would'ves.
At the privately-owned Residence Herron in Dorval, Quebec, a suburb of Montreal, 33 residents have died since March 13. This situation is not an exception. The Quebec coroner, the Montreal police and the Quebec health ministry have launched investigations after nurses sent into the residence by the local health authority, the CIUSSS, on March 29 found horrific conditions of dehydrated and unfed residents, a deceased resident, residents who had been left in soiled continence pads for extended periods, even days, and urine bags left dripping on the floor. In the face of this unspeakable negligence, neither the owner nor the government takes any responsibility. Quebec Premier François Legault put the blame on the private owners, saying there has been gross negligence, while the owner blames the local health authority, saying that management repeatedly asked for protective gear and staff to replace those quarantined after the first case was confirmed. She states that all but one of the deaths have occurred since the CIUSSS took control of the facility on March 29. If no government in Canada can be found to hold those responsible to account, then the system is broken. Everything reveals that it is a system and bureaucracy which permit these practices and lack of accountability and that it must be discarded. Governments stand condemned for causing the deaths and suffering in the seniors' care facilities. Why should the nurses and others have to insist on personal protective equipment (PPE) in accordance with the standards established following the SARS pandemic? Neither no protection nor some arbitrary and watered down version will do. Why was PPE not stockpiled following the SARS pandemic? Why are hospitals understaffed. Why is the privatization of cleaning services, laundry and food services permitted, where the super-exploitation of contract workers means they are underpaid and not equipped to do the job as the conditions require and turn-over is very high while infectious diseases run rampant?
Health care workers have shown the role they play and are capable of playing as organizers, leaders and decision makers when it comes to the conditions which are needed for themselves and those they care for. They know what is needed. They know what staff-patient ratios are needed to provide humane and highest quality care on time. They know that paid sick leave, wages and benefits commensurate with the work they do and full-time jobs in each institution are required to look after people in seniors' homes. Councils where residents and their families and the workers can meet together to establish the modern and humane conditions required in seniors' homes are also needed to enfranchise the families of seniors. Further developing the leading role which the workers are playing in the pandemic is a necessity for the well-being of the workers and those they care for and the well-being of the society itself. For this to happen this pandemic has shown that workers must become worker-politicians in their own right on the platform of ending the pay-the-rich schemes once and for all, increasing investments in social programs, and empowering the people to take the important decisions in all spheres of life. These changes are needed now and they must be claimed as a matter of right -- the right to be. The problems which exist are not caused by the pandemic. What the pandemic reveals is the atrocious conditions which exist and atrocities which are taking place because of the anti-human factor/anti-consciousness which infects those who serve private interests who currently wield the decision-making power. These measures are required because it will not serve the polity to carry on as if is is "business as usual."
This article was published in   Website: www.cpcml.ca Email: editor@cpcml.ca |
The health care
workers and staff at seniors' care homes, both
public and private, have been fighting for years
for the renewal of the seniors' care system,
including adequate staffing, an end to
for-private-profit care, and wages and working
conditions commensurate with the work they do. The
people who have worked so hard to keep a broken
system cobbled together are now under pressure to
continue doing this in the conditions of the
pandemic, with disastrous results.
The problem is not
that these governments are ignorant of the facts
or that they turn a blind eye, but that the people
have no power to hold them to account. They have
created these conditions and now posture that
throwing money or the army rangers at them is
going to fix them. What could be more
straightforward than to fill the seniors' care
homes, private or public, with enough personnel in
the form of nurses and care workers and everything
they need, including protective gear and
alternative accommodations during the pandemic? If
the aim were to provide for the residents'
well-being they would be guaranteed food, proper
feeding and care and the medical and emotional
support they require. To simply express outrage or
lament the conditions and say that now everything
will be taken care of while they hope the story
goes away -- or say that sending in the rangers
will correct the situation, has now become the
problem.
Health care workers
have always been the first line of defence for the
health and safety of the seniors in the continuing
care facilities. They are the ones who have been
dealing with the results of decades of cuts,
closures and privatization and shouldering the
anti-human factor/anti-consciousness of
governments at all levels. All across the country
they have protested and demanded proper working
conditions, which are the seniors' living
conditions. They have developed tactics to make
sure these unsafe practices are blocked. But
without the decision-making power, which is what
political power is, governments use any means they
see fit to ensure that any headway they make is
taken away.
Emergency packages
and measures are still a stop gap measure. Where
is the decision that health care is a right and
that therefore every seniors' care facility and
every person requiring care has the workers and
facilities which are appropriate to their needs at
wages which meet the Canadian standard of living?