Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman and members of the Standing Committee on Health.
My name is Christina Bisanz, CEO of CHATS Community & Home Assistance to Seniors. As an advocate for providing choice for seniors to age at home, CHATS appreciates this opportunity to provide input on the effect of the pandemic on older adults.
CHATS is the largest senior-serving organization in York region in south Simcoe, supporting 8,500 older adults each year through a variety of multicultural programs and services designed to support the health, wellness and independence of seniors and their family caregivers.
Our person-centred programs focus on the social determinants of health in order to enable our clients to live safely and with dignity at home, keeping them out of hospital and long-term care as long as possible. CHATS has been deemed an essential service provider throughout the pandemic, providing support such as transportation to medical appointments, meals on wheels and food security services, caregiver counselling and telephone reassurance calls, just to name a few.
Our personal support workers continue to work on the front line within our assisted living sites, helping seniors with bathing and personal care, meal preparation, medication reminders and other activities of daily living. We've kept our adult day programs open for high needs and dementia clients, which in turn provides their caregivers with greatly needed respite, and when we were no longer able to offer in-person community wellness programs due to public health restrictions, we very quickly designed and delivered virtual wellness and social programs to ensure that our seniors were able to stay connected and engaged with the programs and each other.
In addition, we've worked with our hospital partners to support hospital-to-home transitions for seniors, reducing their risk of readmission.
We're very thankful for the funding that we receive from the seniors new horizons program and other supports, which made it possible for us to be innovative and serve our clients in a virtual world and address emergency needs for food security.
While the ongoing pandemic has illustrated that being in their home and in their community is a safe place for vulnerable seniors to live and receive care, it has also exposed a number of growing risks. I'd like to highlight four of these.
First, the imposed social and physical isolation has led to increased loneliness, depression and a general decline in the physical and mental health of seniors. Many of our clients have not had physical contact with family and friends in a year. Concern with their personal safety by allowing workers into their homes caused a number of our clients to reduce or cancel services, further insulating their social isolation and putting their safety and well-being at risk.
Second has been the impact on family caregivers, who have been experiencing unprecedented and overwhelming levels of stress in keeping their loved ones at home. Frustration and anxiety have led to an increased potential for and incidence of elder and caregiver abuse. The lack of sufficient respite care and support is leading many caregivers to their breaking point.
Third, the pandemic has shown just how dependent we are on the scarce resources of personal support workers in all parts of the health system. The overall shortage of PSWs in Ontario is even more prevalent and more critical in the community sector. Our frontline heroes are also experiencing high levels of stress and anxiety for fear of being exposed to COVID or exposing their clients to risks. Many come from racialized and marginalized communities. With wages generally lower than in the long-term care and hospital settings, the community sector is not in a position to compete for a resource that is crucial to enabling many frail seniors to continue to live at home, where they want to be.
Lastly, when the pandemic was first declared, an incredible spotlight of concern shone upon seniors. New funding, community response, offers of support to make phone calls and send letters and other examples of generosity and caring were unprecedented, but as the pandemic continued, the interest started to wane. Funding support ended with the fiscal year, but the needs and challenges for seniors because of COVID haven't stopped. Let's not leave our seniors behind.
I thank you for your time and attention, and I look forward to your questions.