Post-pandemic life for seniors

The vaccinations have started, thank goodness. We just have to wait our turn now: the end is in sight. Or is it? What will life be like for us seniors when the pandemic is finally over?

In some respects it will be better. In just a few short months, technology has come to the rescue: virtual lifelong learning, entertainment, fitness, medical appointments, shopping, visits with friends and family. It’s sure to continue after the pandemic: we need it, we love it, it makes perfect sense. Even if we have health or frailty issues that keep us close to home, now we can survive and even thrive at home as never before.

But suppose we have a stroke or break a hip and can’t look after ourselves anymore. Would we risk going into long term care? We were all horrified by what the first wave of the pandemic revealed: a nightmare of incompetence, inadequacy, abuse and neglect. Politicians claimed to be horrified too, and vowed to take action. So, knowing that the second wave was coming, what did the Government of Ontario do? Over the summer, while the healthcare community kept urging action to prepare for the second wave, Ontario did precisely nothing. Instead, in the fall Ontario passed the Supporting Ontario’s Recovery Act, which provides liability protection to workers and businesses in a number of sectors which make “an honest effort” to follow public health guidelines and laws. In effect, it will now be significantly harder for residents and families to hold long term care homes liable for any harm caused by exposure to Covid-19. In October 2020, an independent commission investigating Covid-19 in Ontario long term care homes began releasing interim recommendations, calling for immediate changes to better deal with the second wave of the pandemic. The Ford government has focused mainly on only one of them, the recommendation that every resident receive a minimum of four hours of direct care per day. First, they watered it down from a “minimum” to an “average” of four hours per day. Then they decided to roll the plan out slowly, in piecemeal fashion, over four years. The Ontario plan offers only 15 additional minutes of care before the next election. The remaining care will take another three years. As for regular unscheduled nursing home inspections, which the Ontario government cancelled before the pandemic and which the commission report recommended reinstating, Ontario makes no mention of them at all.

How can they get away with this? You know the answer, you know it in your bones. Premier Ford has ageism on his side. Our society views seniors as a burden, and wants our care to be cheap. Politicians will not gain many votes by spending a lot of money on senior care, not even after all the revelations of abuse and neglect. Ageism is more blatant now, and more cruel. It will be affecting our lives as seniors more than ever in the post-pandemic world.