By the time Bob Thoms, a retired engineer, entered long-term care, he had already experienced a series of harrowing health crises. He was diagnosed with lung cancer in his late 50s, then lymphoma a few months later. In the wake of chemotherapy, his cognitive abilities began to deteriorate. Doctors chalked it up to “chemo brain.” “He just wasn’t him anymore,” his younger brother, Bill, says. Around the same time, undergoing surgery for a perforated ulcer, Bob flatlined on the operating table and was technically dead for six minutes.
Bob lived alone in an apartment on Wellesley Street. Bill and their sister, Susan Hynes, checked in on him several times a week. After Bob inexplicably tossed a lit cigarette down the garbage chute of his building, causing a fire, they realized they couldn’t provide the level of care he needed. He hated the first home they put him in too many old people, he said so they moved him to Guildwood, a long-term care facility in Scarborough. It seeme
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The Family Day long weekend saw recent COVID-19 data trends continue within the Eastern Ontario Health Unit region, as 20 new cases were confirmed and almost 50 cases resolved.
The increase in cases, averaged out, was about six cases per day since the EOHU’s last update on Friday afternoon.
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South Stormont and Cornwall had the largest increases, accounting for 11 of the 20 new cases; Seven of those being in South Stormont, and four in Cornwall. There’s also been a 64th fatality since Friday, which provincial data posted Tuesday morning identified as being a resident at Woodland Villa in Long Sault, where an outbreak has now claimed five lives.
COVID-193 February 2021
By Sue Tiffin
The following are brief reports from a Haliburton, Kawartha, Pine Ridge district health unit press conference held virtually Jan. 27.
Dr. Ian Gemmill, acting medical officer of health, noted that Haliburton County is not unaffected by COVID-19 – at the time of the press conference, there were five current cases of COVID-19 in Haliburton County being confirmed by the health unit, more than a dozen high-risk contacts, and the first hospitalization since one reported last April.
“So the numbers are small but I think the issue I’m trying to get across is that coronavirus is everywhere,” he told media. “There’s no part of our area that is unaffected, and there’s no part of our area in which you can throw precautions to the wind. It’s basically a fact of life, it’s something we’re living with now. If someone is saying there’s no coronavirus in Haliburton, it’s not accurate.”
Home » News » Local Long-Term Care Coalition hopes to inspire change in ‘broken’ industry
The disastrous roof leak and subsequent months-long evacuation of Highland Wood in Haliburton was one of the underlying reasons Bonnie Roe and Mike Perry came together to form the Long-Term Care Coalition. /File photo
News27 January 2021
By Mike Baker
After issuing a proverbial call to arms last May, a new community group committed to improving conditions within the region’s long-term care homes is continuing to share their concerns that many senior residents living within those facilities are not being treated with respect and dignity.
Local residents Bonnie Roe and Mike Perry launched the Long-Term Care Coalition after hearing horror stories from friends and family who have loved ones presently living in nursing homes and retirement facilities. Together, the pair rallied a small group of community activists, who have spent the past eight months lobbying for drastic system
The first doses of COVID-19 vaccine arrived in the Haliburton, Kawartha, Pine Ridge region on Monday.
COVID-1927 January 2021
By Mike Baker
The Haliburton, Kawartha, Pine Ridge District Health Unit received its first allocation of COVID-19 vaccine on Monday evening, with staff planning to start vaccinating residents of the area’s long-term care homes this week.
The local unit received 700 doses of the Moderna vaccine, with more potentially on the way next week. The vaccines are being stored at Ross Memorial Hospital in Lindsay, and will be delivered to long-term care homes by the local health unit.
“This is the day we have been waiting for,” said Dr. Ian Gemmill, acting medical officer of health for the HKPR district health unit. “We have been working with our local hospital partners and our long-term care and retirement homes to work out the logistics of getting this vaccine into as many arms as quickly as possible.”