Data-driven change needed in long-term care
By: Carole Estabrooks
More than 22,000 people in Canada have died from COVID-19 – the vast majority of them aged over 60 years. Most of those deaths occurred in long-term care homes. This crisis continues now, even after governments and operators have put in place emergency strategies and, in some jurisdictions, creative solutions to address staff shortages.
For example, offering to pay relatives to provide care, creating new support roles with free training and providing salary top-ups. This response, however, is years late, and piecemeal in its approach.
In June, the Royal Society of Canada released a policy briefing by the Working Group on Long-Term Care which outlined nine recommendations that would go a long way to "not just fix the current communicable disease crisis, but fix the sector that enabled the crisis to wreak such avoidable and tragic havoc."