Study on COVID-19 Long Term Care deaths discussion with Dr. Samir Sinha, Director of Health Policy Research at the NIA.
81% of COVID-19 deaths in Canada were in long-term care – nearly double OECD average
By: Kelly Grant
Samir Sinha, Director of Health Policy Research at the NIA in Toronto, said the same pattern held true within Canada. “The standout province in Canada has been B.C.,” he said. The government there acted early to protect long-term care homes and it has had far fewer outbreaks and deaths than central Canada as a result, Dr. Sinha said.
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Coronavirus Lays Bare Poor Conditions in Canada’s Nursing Homes
By: Paul Vieira
“This is a huge black eye” for Canada, said Dr. Samir Sinha, Director of Health Policy Research and co-chairman of Ryerson University’s National Institute on Ageing. He said policy makers’ inaction to address nursing-home shortcomings—most notably funding for staff—“helped sow the seeds of the tragedy we have been witnessing.”
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“From what we know right now, older people are the most susceptible to dying from COVID-19,” said Dr. Samir Sinha, Director of Health Policy Research at the NIA in Toronto. “So for this person who’s 75 and older, you know, she’s got about an eight per cent risk of dying if she got COVID-19,” he said.
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Lessons learned from COVID-19 and sharing research from the National Institute on Ageing.
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Ontario Long-term care visits resume
Dr. Samir Sinha, Director of Health Policy Research at the NIA, joined CTV news and says that Ontario long-term care home visit restrictions are a bit over restrictive.
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How to fix a national embarrassment
COVID-19 has proven highly contagious and cruelly lethal for elderly patients−characteristics that seem specifically engineered to wreak havoc on nursing homes, as attested by worldwide mortality figures. Yet Canada’s experience has been “uniquely bad,” laments Michael Nicin, executive director of the National Institute on Ageing (NIA) at Toronto’s Ryerson University. “With 82 per cent of all COVID deaths in Canada occurring in long-term care homes, we are unfortunately leading the world in this regard.”
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Families with elderly loved ones weigh risk of visits
By: The Canadian Press
With COVID-19 cases on the decline, public health officials are relaxing restrictions about who and how many people we can see. But experts warn people need to remain vigilant about visiting the elderly and immuno-compromised people. "Everybody's a bit uneasy because there's a lot of things we don't know right now," said Dr. Samir Sinha, Director of Health Policy Research at the NIA.
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Desperate long-term care reforms require a big-picture vision
By Bonnie-Jeanne MacDonald Contributors Michael Nicin
COVID-19 showed us that maintaining the status quo for LTC in Canada is an unacceptable path. Financial projections by the National Institute on Aging (NIA) show it’s also expensive and financially unsustainable.
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Frustration surrounds visiting restrictions at Ontario nursing homes
The Ontario government has now allowed for limited family visits to long-term care homes, but some doctors say the remaining restrictions are stricter than they need to be, and that is frustrating families.
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Long-term care facilities to allow visits, but strict guidelines remain
By: Alicia Draus
Dr. Samir Sinha, Director of Health Policy Research at the NIA, says the pandemic has highlighted how important a role families play in caring for their loved ones in long-term care facilities. Sinha says as funding for long-term care facilities has decreased across the country in recent years, family members have been there to pick up the slack.
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Peter Shawn Taylor: Why Canada Needs for Profit Nursing Homes
By: Peter Shawn Taylor
Amid accusations that for-profit long term care is a moral abomination, more thoughtful voices recognize a diversity of outcomes across the entire industry. According to Michal Nicin, executive director of the National Institute on Ageing at Ryerson University in Toronto, “Some of the private homes are doing exceptionally well because they have deeper pockets and much better planning procedures” than non-profits. “It is not clear to me that one class of ownership structure is doing noticeably better than any others.”
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More seniors expected to turn to reverse mortgages due to COVID-19
By: Erica Alini
Long-term care settings accounted for more than 80 per cent of the deaths caused by COVID-19 in Canada, according to data from the National Institute on Ageing published in late May.
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'It is inhumane': Daughter kept from dying mother's bedside because of limits on long-term care visitors
By: Elizabeth Payne
Dr. Samir Sinha, director of health policy research at the National Institute on Ageing, said there is nothing in the provincial guidelines that limits family members with dying loved ones to a certain amount of time.
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Long-term care facilities are the only option for many. What happens when they fall short?
By: Meghan Collie
Dr. Samir Sinha, director of geriatrics at Sinai Health System and the University Health Network in Toronto, agrees — employees need better wages and more benefits. In Ontario, long-term care workers are also not receiving enough masks or the same employment support when it comes to taking sick leave compared to doctors in a hospital, Sinha previously told Global News. This can put more pressure on workers to come in even if they feel unwell.
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'We've been so blessed': In-person long-term care visits resume in some provinces
By: Jill Macyshon and Solarina Ho
Some experts say the face-to-face visits could be extended further, allowing family caregivers indoor access as well, especially in facilities experiencing staffing shortages. "Making sure that we can make those as safe as possible, because sometimes that lack of care is more deadly if you will … than the virus itself," said Dr. Samir K Sinha, the Director of Geriatrics at Sinai Health System and the University Health Network.
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'It can’t be for nothing': Daughter of Northwood resident wants answers after mother's COVID-19 death
By: Natasha Pace
Dr. Samir Sinha, the director of geriatrics at Mount Sinai and the University Health Network Hospitals in Toronto, says the COVID-19 virus preys on seniors. “When we start looking at seniors who are in their 70s, their 80s and 90s, we see death rates of up to eight, 15 and 25 per cent.” Sinha says we now know that older homes that have multi-bedded rooms are more likely to face outbreaks and have significant death counts.
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Northwood seeks private rooms after COVID-19 tragedy, but will N.S. fund the fix?
By: The Canadian Press
Dr. Samir Sinha, director of health policy research at the National Institute on Aging at Ryerson University, says it's crucial over the next 16 months that large Canadian homes like Northwood move to single-room layouts, even if it requires more government funding. "I hope nobody is haggling over the costs here, especially when so many lives have already been lost," he said in an interview.
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Conservative leadership candidates pitch fixes for long term care
By: Catherine Cullen
"I think [Canadians will] expect more from their Conservative candidates and they'll expect more from any government that wants to be in charge of their future," said Dr. Samir Sinha, director of geriatrics at Mount Sinai and the University Health Network Hospitals in Toronto.
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More than 1/3 of Ontario LTC facilities report increases in worsening pressure ulcers, chemical or physical restraint use
By: Victoria Gibson
Samir Sinha, director of geriatrics for Toronto’s Mount Sinai and University Health Network hospitals, called the phenomenon “a tale of two stories” — something he believes underscores a need for national, home-by-home data across Canada. “We can only improve on the quality of care that we’re delivering at each individual home if we actually know what each individual home is doing,” Sinha said.