According to the study by the Canadian Institute for Health Information, 69 per cent of Canada’s COVID-related deaths occurred in long-term care. That represents one of the highest mortality rates in the world. The international average was 41 per cent.

By Sheila Copps
First published in The Hill Times on April 5, 2021.

Shame on Canada.

When it comes to quality of life, we rank very well in the world on many fronts. But the treatment of incapacitated seniors has always been our dirty little secret.

COVID-19 has exposed the real story behind many of our long-term care facilities.

Last week’s report on Canada’s global status in residential care mortality rates is a must-read for anyone interested in improving lives for vulnerable elderly.

According to the study by the Canadian Institute for Health Information, 69 per cent of Canada’s COVID-related deaths occurred in long-term care. That represents one of the highest mortality rates in the world. The international average was 41 per cent.

The CIHI also underscored the COVID cost to those seniors dying from other causes.

Because of the focus on COVID, during the first few months of the pandemic, doctors’ visits and hospital transfers for other reasons also dropped dramatically.

The shameful conclusion: Canada suffered the worst record for COVID-19 deaths in long-term care homes compared with other wealthy countries.

The CIHI also reviewed the general trend of resident deaths, which was exacerbated during the pandemic.

Mortality rates ranged from a high of 28 per cent in Ontario to a low of four per cent in British Columbia. According to the report there were 2,273 more deaths during COVID than the number of deaths during the same period over the previous five years. Not surprisingly, the largest hike came during the peak of the first wave in April of 2020.

There are currently multiple inquiries going on across several provinces to get to the bottom of the issue. But clearly this story needs a pan-Canadian perspective to offer the insight that will inform future decisions.

According to the report, more than one-third of all Ontario long-term care homes and 44 per cent of homes in Quebec suffered an outbreak, compared to only eight per cent in British Columbia and 17 per cent in Alberta.

But as health-care delivery is provincial, each province is doing their own autopsy without reviewing the situation from a national perspective.

Most federal reports will get widespread attention for a few days and then get filed under the “federal interference in provincial jurisdiction” subject matter.

Provinces are generally more interested in protecting their autonomy than in actually protecting their vulnerable, elderly populations.

If British Columbia managed to keep its COVID outbreaks to single digits, it has something to teach the rest of the country. But because of our bifurcated system, the lessons will likely stop at the Rockies.

Instead, we will end up with 13 studies of how to improve an internalized process.

Some solutions are simple. Obviously, an injection of money into chronic care support will be required, especially to increase the salaries of those frontline workers who were struggling to make ends meet.

The issue of part-time employment is definitely one that needs to be tackled. It is not surprising that personal service workers are forced to take more than one job when their salary is limited to part-time work as a way of avoiding payment of benefits and labour law protection for full-time workers.

In British Columbia, a strong union has been able to negotiate better working conditions. The province had a prohibition on health-care workers operating in more than one home, and that single rule minimized the spread of COVID from one institution to the next.

According to federal New Democrats, the only solution is to close down all private facilities and replace them with public sector solutions. However, there were a number of poorly run public sector facilities that suffered deaths.

The issue involves developing a set of applicable standards, with the funding to support it, that can be implemented across the country.

Instead of solving 13 problems, the country would be finding a unified solution.

Surely the challenges in long-term care management cannot be that different from Newfoundland to British Columbia. So why not tackle the problem from a pan-Canadian perspective?

The CIHI report should serve as a wake-up call that the time has come to look beyond politics and focus on what is best for those most vulnerable seniors who end up in long-term care facilities.

Most of them have lost the ability to fight for themselves, and so it is up to the rest of the country to fight for them.

Long-term care facilities have been deteriorating for years.

We need a concerted national effort to clean up Canada’s sorry treatment of our aged.

Sheila Copps is a former Jean Chrétien-era cabinet minister and a former deputy prime minister. Follow her on Twitter at @Sheila_Copps.