I'd like to thank all of you for having me here.
Ms. Hall, it's so nice to see you again. We spoke together in front of the HUMA committee.
CARP is a national, not-for-profit, non-partisan organization with 320,000 members who come from every province and territory across Canada. It's important to distinguish that while a lot of our members are retired and enjoy above-average education and income, an overwhelming majority consistently support that CARP represents the interests of all older Canadians across Canada. We believe all older adults deserve to live in dignity and with respect, regardless of income level, family support and health challenges.
It is with the following areas of health care that COVID-19 has undermined these fundamental principles of aging well and revealed a lack of planning and preparation that would secure the health and well-being of seniors during a pandemic.
The first and most obvious area is long-term care. If COVID has revealed anything, it has revealed that we warehouse seniors who are frail and very ill in unsafe situations that are underfunded and understaffed, including those who often have little or no certified training. We expect individuals and/or their families to pay a significant part of the privilege to be in those facilities. We placed both residents and staff at immense risk by not prioritizing the availability of PPE in long-term care soon enough. Too often, health system planning stops at the budget line of what government funds. We think it's time we reconsidered this during a pandemic.
It is unconscionable that of 5,000 deaths in Canada so far from COVID-19, 82% were among a population we are duty-bound to protect, and we failed. This is not the responsibility of the federal government alone, but it is the duty of the federal government to make sure that it doesn't happen again. If we've learned anything, it's that we didn't have a real plan in place for seniors in long-term care in this kind of pandemic. This is despite having advance warnings from other countries, seeing previous crises of similar scale like SARS and MERS, and having experience with seasonal influenza that spreads in these settings and claims seniors' lives annually. These are our most vulnerable members of society. We can and we must do better.
The second area is home care supports. CARP has long been examining the positive outcomes of other countries around the world who have met the challenges of long-term care with innovative solutions in leveraging home care options. Denmark, Norway and Finland are a few examples. In Canada it's reported that at least 20% of residents in long-term care could have their needs met at home.
That said, for those who are leveraging community-based home care supports with personal support aides, workers, and other in-home supports, several issues arose as a result of COVID-19. The first was the lack of PPE, which, along with the cross-utilization of personnel between retirement care homes and individuals requiring in-home support, contributed to a greater rate of community transmission in both settings. There was a clear lack of direction and guidance for caregivers and family supports, reinforcing the fact that in-home caregivers were not considered a part of the pandemic response.
The third issue I'd like to raise is the surgical backlogs. Many diagnostic, treatment and surgical activities have fallen victim to the focus on COVID-19. It includes a reluctance by Canadians to seek treatment for new non-COVID symptoms. This is not just a possibility; it is very much a reality today. CARP fears what this might mean for the health of our older populations who suffer from chronic conditions as well as such life-threatening disease conditions as cancer and cardiac care. Attention to this backlog, and conditions requiring such care, need to be prioritized.
If I have time, I'd like to draw your attention to two more things.