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TORONTO, VANCOUVER—Two veteran seniors care researchers have detailed federally mandated standards to reform long-term care amid a second wave of COVID-19 in a new discussion paper by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives.
A Higher Standard: Setting national standards for long-term and continuing care outlines the key principles and minimum requirements needed to implement the federal government’s Throne Speech promise to set national standards for long-term care. It is a promise that came in the wake of the pandemic tragedies, some of which were so devastating the army was called in to respond.
“A global pandemic that has ravaged long-term care facilities in Canada forces us to reckon with the obvious: it is time to set a higher standard for long-term care,” says co-author Pat Armstrong, a professor at York University. “COVID-19 revealed the tragic consequences of a fragmented and neglected essential service. We have a chance to right that wrong.”
“Globally, countries with strong national regulation and oversight in long-term care fared better during COVID-19,” says Marcy Cohen, co-author and research associate with the CCPA-BC Office.
Armstrong and Cohen recommend the federal government:
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Ensure that everyone has access to care based on need, without financial barriers, and with maximum wait times for admission to a long-term care home;
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Establish and enforce minimum staffing levels in these facilities—accompanied by decent working conditions and recruitment strategies to attract and retain staff;
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Ensure a minimum of 70 per cent of staff work full-time in a single site and that all staff (including part-time) have benefits and pay based on equity principles;
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Set in place plans to address infections, ranging from adequate stock of PPE to methods for effective laundry treatment to adequate room size and ventilation;
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Require public accountability through public reporting of consistent, verified data and enforcement of penalties for failure to comply with standards;
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Invest significant federal funds into developing a universal seniors care system, with stringent accountability mechanisms attached.
“The federal government also needs to address the elephant in the COVID-19 room: our dependence on for-profit facilities,” Armstrong says. “Canada needs a federal plan to ensure that all public money for elderly care goes to public or non-profit organizations, including sub-contracted services.”
“It is time for cooperation among provincial and federal leaders,” says Cohen. “The setting of clear standards in health care as a condition of federal funding is not an attack on provincial jurisdiction—it is the only path forward to a universal public system of long-term and continuing care, the same path Canada took to universal hospital and physician care. Seniors and people with disabilities deserve nothing less.”
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