A draft report released last week on improving conditions for long-term care residents should be seen for what it represents: a sidebar to a discussion this country has put off for far too long, and which the COVID-19 pandemic made clear can no longer be avoided.
Read MoreDr. Bonnie-Jeanne MacDonald is the director of financial security research at the National Institute on Ageing (NIA), Ryerson University. Bringing together leading industry experts and building on academic best practices coupled with innovative ideas, Dr. MacDonald’s work aims to improve retirement financial security for Canadians through practical insights, industry innovations and government solutions. This interview dives into Canada’s current and future retirement challenges.
Read More"Sometimes depending on the severity of your infection, it might also translate into the immune response that you might create. If someone had a severe infection that might have been prolonged as well, they might have a much more robust immune response and potentially a higher level of immunity," said Dr. Samir Sinha, NIA Director of Health Policy Research.
Read MoreDr. Samir Sinha said continuing to use the term fully vaccinated for two doses is a “huge disservice” not only to seniors who derive enormous benefit from three doses, but people of all ages, “who don’t know how essential and important a third dose is.” Sinha is Director of Health Policy Research at the NIA.
Read More"We just made history by having more than 16,000 people die in our long-term care and retirement homes because of this pandemic. Wave after wave we continue to see record numbers of homes entering outbreak. We've got some fundamental, long-standing issues that we really need to address. This became an opportunity for us to take a look at what the existing standards are that led us into this mess in the first place and what can we do to strengthen them so that they speak to what resident-centred care really looks like," says Dr. Samir Sinha, NIA Director of Health Policy Research (starts at minute 24).
Read More"There are some long-term care homes that are going overboard in my view, by limiting residents to their rooms, not having any activities, or not even allowing them to wander the halls safely," says Dr. Samir Sinha, NIA Director of Health Policy Research.
Read More"It's just so sad when you think that in the last few weeks we've lost over 300 residents and just how unforgiving this pandemic has been, especially to those people living in our long-term care and retirement homes," said Dr. Samir Sinha, NIA Director of Health Policy Research.
Read More"We had a treatment, we had a booster shot that this person wanted, that her family wanted," said Dr. Samir Sinha, NIA Director of Health Policy Research. He said the family was "doing all the right things they were supposed to do. Yet this is where our system failed."
Read MoreDr. Samir Sinha, NIA Director of Health Policy Research, believes several new criteria in the proposed standards would have saved thousands of lives in long-term care homes during the pandemic.
Read MoreDuring a technical briefing this week, Dr. Samir Sinha, NIA Director of Health Policy Research, said he hopes it will lead to meaningful change. Accreditation Canada, which accredits 68 per cent of long-term care homes across the country, has agreed to use these standards in its process, but there’s no requirement for provinces and territories to adopt them or change legislation accordingly.
Read MoreThe Health Standards Organization draft standards will be open to public review for 60 days. The Canadian Standards Association's proposed standards, expected to be revealed next month, also will be subject to public input for 60 days. The final standards are expected this fall.
Read MoreSpecial to Financial Post by Bonnie-Jeanne MacDonald, NIA Director of Financial Security Research: By 2050 the costs of long-term care will take up more than a quarter of all income tax revenues
Read MoreDr. Samir Sinha, HSO’s long-term care services technical committee chair, said he is hopeful this will provide a “clear blueprint” to enable the federal government, provinces and territories to move long-term care “to where all Canadians are demanding it to go.”
Read More"I'm hoping. My God, I'm hoping that this will be a clear blueprint that really can enable provincial and territorial and federal action to move long-term care to where all Canadians are demanding it to go," said Dr. Samir Sinha, NIA Director of Health Policy Research.
Read More"Thousands of Canadians said, 'We want long-term care to feel like home to be home-like.' So we asked, 'What does that mean to you?' The standard can become the basis for new legislation for new regulations," says Dr. Samir Sinha, NIA Director of Health Policy Research.
Read More“If you want to enable the standard, you have to fix issues of funding. You must have better staffing. We must have better levels of accountability,” says Dr. Samir Sinha, NIA Director of Health Policy Research.
Read More"The previous standards didn't have much to say about the [long-term care] workforce. But we know that our conditions of work are the conditions of care. And unless we actually make sure we have a well supported, resilient and competent workforce, then you can't even provide good care at all," says Dr. Samir Sinha, NIA Director of Health Policy Research.
Read More“I think a lot of the standard has been written in that line of thinking, about what have we experienced and what further things we need to do in the standard to have avoided a lot of what we had been witnessing over and over again during this pandemic,” Dr. Samir Sinha said in a media briefing ahead of the document’s release.
Read More“These standards can be so much more than just the basis of accreditation programs,” said Dr. Samir Sinha, NIA Director of Health Policy Research.
Read More"I'm hoping that this will be a clear blueprint that really can enable provincial, territorial and federal action to move long-term care to where all Canadians are demanding it to go," said Dr. Samir Sinha, NIA Director of Health Policy Research.
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