Wonderful. Thank you very much.
I have a question for Ms. Benard.
You suggested that public long-term care facilities provide better care than private. Amanda Vyce from CUPE made a similar bold statement a few meetings ago, which I also challenged.
I'm wondering what science-based information you're using to make that suggestion, especially since we just heard from Dr. Dorian that there is no pan-Canadian data collection system to support that kind of an assertion. Is this just one of those cases where if you say it long enough and hard enough it becomes true? Here in B.C. we've had a private long-term care facility ban public health nurses from entering due to the fact that they were only given two masks and two gloves to ration for the month by our regional health care authority.
Clearly, the challenge that long-term care facilities have is far more complicated than just being either public or private. Access to PPE has been one of the biggest fiascos our public health authority has had to deal with. Our national emergency stockpile system was severely mismanaged, making it very difficult for all nurses, including long-term caregivers, to be able to protect themselves and their patients from infection.
Protecting our seniors should be our top priority. Do you think that the Toronto Star article you cited has been sufficiently peer reviewed to be able to extrapolate such a bold assertion?