‘I have never seen anything like it’: Calls for more help, new measures as outbreaks at LTC, retirement homes reach record levels

January 12, 2022 admin Litecoin 0

Ottawa Public Health reported 20 outbreaks in long-term-care homes and 37 outbreaks in retirement homes on Wednesday, the highest number of ongoing outbreaks since the pandemic began, according to OPH data. Photo by Heiko119 /Getty Images/iStockphoto

More Ottawa long-term care and retirement homes are now experiencing COVID-19 outbreaks than at any time during the pandemic as calls grow for more support for homes province-wide.

Ottawa Public Health reported 20 outbreaks in long-term-care homes and 37 outbreaks in retirement homes on Wednesday, the highest number of ongoing outbreaks since the pandemic began, according to OPH data.

In Renfrew County, acting Medical Officer of Health Dr. Rob Cushman has been looking for solutions to prevent staffing shortages in local long-term care and retirement homes. Renfrew County is also seeing record outbreaks with outbreaks confirmed or under investigation at about one-third of its retirement and long-term care homes in the county.

“I have never seen anything like it,” he said.

Staffing challenges are making it more difficult for some homes to cope with the outbreaks. Among other things, Cushman was considering the possibility of setting up swat teams of paramedics to go into homes with critical staff shortages.

Some of the outbreaks in Ottawa involve just a few cases of the highly contagious Omicron variant, but others are larger and growing. Among them: a total of 43 infected residents and three infected staff at Camilla Gardens Retirement Home, five residents, including one resident death, and 24 staff at the city-run Peter D. Clark long-term care home, and a total of 17 infected residents and 44 infected staff at St. Patrick’s Home long-term care. One resident death was also reported at the St. Patrick’s home outbreak, which began in December.

At least one Ottawa home not in outbreak has dozens of positive cases among staff, but those are considered community spread.

Ottawa Public Health is also reporting high numbers of outbreaks at hospitals, including one involving 27 patients, one staff member and one patient death at Queensway Carleton Hospital, and outbreaks at group homes and shelters as the highly transmissible Omicron variant spreads through the community. In total, Ottawa Public Health reported 124 open outbreaks in healthcare institutions Wednesday, including outbreaks at every hospital in the city. All of the health institutions are trying to manage the outbreaks while coping with critical staff shortages, largely due to the pandemic.

The growing numbers of long-term care and retirement home outbreaks, in Ottawa and across the province, is raising alarm bell, especially because residents are isolated and many staff are off work with COVID-19 or in isolation.

An Ottawa-area group that represents family councils at long-term care homes wants the province to ask for help from the military and Red Cross “to ensure that our long-term care residents receive basic care and do not suffer the neglect we saw in the first and second wave.

“In previous waves, many residents died of malnutrition or dehydration not from COVID. This must not happen again!” wrote members of the Champlain Region Family Council Network in a letter to Long-Term Care Minister Rod Phillips.

Co-chair Grace Welch said council members are particularly concerned because hospitals are unable to offer staff to help long-term care homes as they did in earlier waves.

Vivian Stamatopoulos, a long-term care advocate and associate teaching professor at Ontario Tech University, is also concerned about the spread of Omicron infections in long-term care homes. Nearly half of all long-term care homes in the province are now experiencing outbreaks. As of Wednesday, there were outbreaks at 290 long-term care homes across the province.

Stamatopoulos says visits by family caregivers, who are triple vaccinated, are more important than ever right now amid severe staffing shortages and should not be limited.

“We are hearing from families that homes are like ghost towns or workers they don’t recognize.” Currently only essential caregivers can visit, but she said family members who can help and are fully vaccinated should be welcomed in to homes to help care for isolated loved ones.

Some of the cases reported in larger outbreaks in Ottawa may have since recovered, but if an outbreak is ongoing, residents remain in isolation, which can result in deteriorating health.

A spokesperson for Extendicare said some of the cases reported at long-term care homes have already been resolved because the situation is so fluid — Ottawa Public Health is reporting more infections than are currently ongoing there.

Spokesperson Laura Gallant said Extendicare has bolstered outbreak management by making sure several months of PPE and cleaning supplies are onsite, having infection prevention and control consultants on site and meeting or exceeding ministry testing and screening directives.

Ottawa Public Health is beginning to administer fourth doses of COVID-19 vaccines in long-term care and retirement homes to further protect vulnerable residents from serious illness or hospitalization if they do become infected. It is also administering third doses to long-term care staff. Ottawa Public Health is also conducting site visits to homes to ensure compliance with best practices and guidelines and meets daily with agency partners, including Ontario Health, the Ministry of Long-Term Care the retirement homes regulatory authority and local infection control officials.

Still, the growing numbers of long-term care and retirement home outbreaks, in Ottawa and across the province, is raising alarm among some who fear isolation and staffing shortages are creating a return of the circumstances that resulted in allegations of neglect and abuse at some of the worst-hit homes during outbreaks in 2020. Canadian Forces teams were deployed to five Ontario long-term care homes in the spring of 2020 and later reported seeing residents unbathed, in soiled beds, left unfed and crying for aid with no response.

Opposition politicians and advocates have called on the provincial government to do more to protect residents this time around.

“I am getting very frightened. I can’t believe a year and a half later we are here again,” said Welch of the Champlain Region Family Council Network.