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My wife, in LTC with dementia, passed away from complications caused by covid-19 last Monday. Her nursing home escaped covid in the spring through the staff's hard work and good management. The home has kept families informed throughout this wave. Once covid got into the home, https://twitter.com/ruthmkb/status/1327288273681715201
the home did everything it cld possibly do to try to protect the residents. Cld they have used more resources? Undoubtedly. But the provincial govt wld have had to prepare for this years ago. It is not possible for any govt to reform the LTC system in a short time during
a pandemic. We can only try to improve things for the future, not waste time blaming current govts for decades of short-sightedness by previous govts. The home gave detailed explanations of what they were doing, and nurses contacted me everytime something was done for my wife.
I have no complaints about the nursing home administration and staff at Extendicare Starwood. Some ppl demand the impossible. The one thing I noticed that is probably the weakest link in protecting the residents and staff is the lack of rapid-turnaround testing. When it can take
up to a week to get results from swabbing residents and staff, it is too late to isolate the infected from the others. We talk a lot abt getting a vaccine, but there has not been enough effort put into rapid testing in Cda. Without that, we can't track who's been infected.
The multiple test sites set up around Ottawa were, in my opinion, a waste of time and resources because of the long turnaround times for test results. If there is one failure by the federal govt it is the lack of rapid testing. @DavidMcGuinty
