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Resistance to the Conditions in Seniors' Homes Killing Off Canada's Seniors -- The Heart of the MatterThe unsustainable situation faced by older people during this pandemic is of great concern to workers, families and their loved ones.
The fact is that on March 23, 25 and April 9, the Ministry of Health and Public Services issued directives to CHSLDs telling them not to transfer patients to hospitals. The March 23 directive specifies that "Suspected or confirmed COVID-19 patients should only be transferred to hospital on an exceptional basis and after consultation with the on-call physician. [...]" The Directive of March 25 explicitly states that transfers to hospitals must be avoided. The same directive says there must be a systematic review of all levels of care for this specific clientele. This is so complicated that it makes transfer to hospital virtually impossible. The directive of April 9 states that "If their state of health requires it, the user is transferred to a hospital centre designated COVID-19. This decision depends on the level of care, which is determined according to the wishes of the user and his or her family and the judgment of the physician" [emphasis added]. In stating that the decision is determined on the basis of the patient, family and the judgment of the physician, the Ministry seems to wilfully deny the conditions under which the decision has to be made -- the facilities are understaffed and the staff available are often not qualified nurses or physicians; the patient is in isolation, very possibly in distress; and the family is barred from entering the premises. How is the systematic review of care supposed to take place? The government stands accused of reneging on its responsibility to provide the maximum care possible, at the highest standard of modern health care, whether the patient is in a CHSLD, a seniors' residence or a hospital.
For the past 20 years, Quebeckers have been decrying the conditions in many of these homes, which are understaffed. Furthermore, many of our relatives are parked there because they have had strokes and the medical establishment is not permitted to rehabilitate them, or they have Parkinson's which they do not want to tackle. The dedicated staff is chronically underpaid and often do not have the nursing qualifications required to meet the needs of the residents. Who in Quebec does not know that many patients who need rehabilitation or have illnesses do not belong in the CHSLDs where people are sent to die. Why is it considered "normal" to have so many deaths in these places during flu season? Why are seniors not transferred to hospitals as soon as they show symptoms to be treated properly?
Quebeckers are determined to hold governments to account for their refusal to take social responsibility for the conditions in the CHSLDs. Another concern is what will happen once elective surgeries can no longer be postponed? The hospital beds available to treat COVID-19 patients were freed up throughout Quebec by postponing "non-urgent" (i.e. elective surgeries). This is a two-fold problem. What happens to the patients who need treatment, and if elective surgeries restart, where will COVID-19 patients go? It is reported that there are normally 9,000 surgical procedures in hospitals every week. By the week of March 28, some 6,750 surgeries had been postponed. Specialists are predicting a bottleneck as early as May as thousands of patients will need surgery at the same time. (Translated from the original French by TML)
This article was published in Article Link:   Website: www.cpcml.ca Email: editor@cpcml.ca |
As
of April 22, the Quebec government had made more than 7,000 beds
available in the hospital system. However, of the 21,838 cases of
people with COVID-19, only 1,400 have been hospitalized since the
beginning of the pandemic while some 5,000 beds are currently
available. Of the 1,243 people who have died, 1,211 -- 97.5 per cent --
were over 60 and, of this number, 850, or 81.7 per cent, were left to
die in seniors' residences or long-term care homes (CHSLDs) in dire
circumstances, alone and in distress.
Surreptitiously
introducing the notion of the "patient's decision" avoids the
heart of the problem. Who is responsible for killing off so many
seniors? The government says that care is available in these places
despite all the evidence which shows that the level of care is already
far below what it should be. Patients who are incontinent are not taken
care of because of a lack of staff and the wait times involved. Others
do not receive a ventilator because there are none on site or none
available at the right time or there are not enough. Families might be
called to ask their permission to give morphine for pain relief and
that is supposed to qualify as a "systematic review of all levels of
care" required by a patient? The excuse given for this negligence is
that "the patient has asked only to be comfortable and does not want
what are called heroic measures." If families protest, they are the
ones portrayed as inhuman. In this way, through sleight of hand, the
government's responsibility is shifted onto seniors and their families
who are forced to make decisions under unacceptable conditions which in
any case have no bearing on what preventative measures should have been
taken and what humane treatment should be available.
The
large number of deaths in the CHSLDs reveals a lot about the conditions
there, none of which is new information. All of Quebec knows what has
been happening there because governments have imposed the neo-liberal
anti-social agenda of cutbacks. The elites who rule know it because
they are doing it and getting richer thanks to the austerity policies
the cartel party governments have adopted and imposed with impunity.
The working people know it because they bear its burden with their
lives. It has been on the agenda of repeated elections, including the
one in which the current premier usurped power.