Thank you so much for inviting me today, honourable members of the committee, and thank you to all the witnesses.
I am Dr. Victoria Dawson. I work in rural Ontario in Wasaga Beach and Collingwood. I have a family practice. I'm here today to talk about the impact of the COVID second wave on our seniors primarily, since that's the majority of my population. I felt it was important to get the community aspect of what's going on. I do nursing home care, plus I have a clinic.
I had quite a number of meetings with my clientele. There's a lot of concern. There is limited help for seniors. I realize that a lot of virtual care has been going on with regard to mental health. However, unfortunately, my seniors are 80 and 90 years old and unable to access things like smart phones or Internet or even use a computer. Many of them have been left alone at their nursing homes because they're isolated from other members.
Our seniors have multiple health issues, such as dementia. They are unable to recognize people over video. They do better with in-person visitations. We have patients with COPD who are breathless, who can't necessarily hold a conservation on video or they can't make enough sound to be heard, so it's very difficult for them to speak on the phone or on virtual media.
Deafness is a huge one. I find that when I do telemedicine, my patients cannot hear me, so when they're trying to connect with other seniors or with their family members, they cannot hear anything, which is very problematic, and it's very difficult to overcome. There are even speech disturbances. It's very difficult sometimes to be heard, as we figured out with my microphone. With visual disturbances, they can't see their family members. Maybe they have a distance field deficit and they're not able to see their family members.
These seniors have communicated to me that they're very lonely. A lot of them are expressing suicidal ideation. They're wanting to die because they just can't face another month or two months without being able to communicate with or see their family members.
There are different community members who are trying to reach out to seniors and who have expressed some concerns as well. One of the concerns is about smart devices. They're unable to access care.
Fear is the other issue, because they don't have access to different resources, as you and I do, to tell them what's going on in the community. Unfortunately, the media is driving a lot of the fear. I'm finding that a lot of my seniors are not coming in to be seen or have their medical problems treated because they are just so scared to go. I had a really nice lady who sat with abdominal pain for eight months, and then we found out she had advanced cancer. Unfortunately it was diagnosed in the emergency department because she was too scared to go anywhere else for months.
With regard to COVID, there's a general lack of nursing home attendants protecting these patients. They've been completely neglected. In trying to protect them, we're also harming them.
I'm here to see if we can do something for these patients and try to find a balance so they're able to communicate with the outside world, create social circles for them because they thrive on being able to talk to other people.
I'm here to say that we need better mental health services for our seniors. A lot of the mental health is great, and I have referred people to virtual care like BounceBack Ontario. But seniors are not able to communicate through those devices, so they're often left with nobody to talk to. The nursing homes are understaffed. A lot of family members were going in and helping their seniors, whether it's cooking them meals or helping them get dressed, and now they're left in their rooms not able to communicate or get the extra help they need.
I'm here to speak for this forgotten population. In protecting them, we have also harmed them. I think that as a committee, as humans, as health care providers, we really need to reach out to that community and make sure they're well protected.
Many of them say to me that they have one or two good years, and they want to spend their one or two good years with family. How can we make that happen?
I know that I'm running out of time, and I also want to touch on our middle-class communities, working-class communities and family members who are not able to make ends meet. I've had a significant increase in this community in drug abuse and alcoholism. That's actually amongst the seniors as well, and people forget that this is how they're trying to deal with their problems as well. I understand why businesses are closed, but they have their entire lives invested in them.
We're seeing the reverberations in the children. The children are in turbulent environments. They're not able to cope with this. We're seeing a high rate of depression and anxiety in those as young as five or six years old when they're realizing what is happening to them. They don't necessarily understand what's going on at school. They understand about a virus, but they can't understand why mom and dad can't pay their bills, or why, not knowing where the next paycheque is going to come from, they have to go to the food bank this week.
I've also had some families who have become homeless during this, and there's no support for them. I'm really spinning my wheels in my community and trying to make sure that everybody is well taken care of, but frankly, I don't have the resources for these patients. I'm at a loss as to what to do. I've talked to other members in my community, and they're also expressing the same concerns. The high rate of suicidal ideation and the amount of mental health...coming in through the emergency departments are something that we can't even handle.
In the rural communities, we really need help. Seniors are number one. They're the ones who are suffering the most. I just want to highlight what we are dealing with from a family medicine perspective on getting these patients some help. Maybe it's financial assistance. We need something.