It's definitely an ageism issue, and I would add that it's a gender issue, because the majority of residents who are in long-term care are women and the majority of health care providers who work in a long-term care system are predominantly women, and also racialized women or newcomers.
In terms of ageism, just [Technical difficulty—Editor] raising or escalating issues. Unfortunately, I had many discussions with the Ontario Ministry of Long-Term Care and the media and many people, and it just felt like people just didn't care. I would be giving them detailed accounts of what was going on in the homes. It always felt that my mom and the residents were being punished because they were living too long.
Even after the outbreak, with her having the bedsore, in some of the discussions I had I would hear that my mom was frail, that she has advanced dementia, that this was to be expected. Yes, it's to be expected that she has advanced dementia and that she will decline, but not to have a stage 4 bedsore and not to have declined in five months' time.
These are the kinds of conversations that I've had with many families within my home and in other homes as well: The resident has declined to the point where now they're not eating well and they're struggling and they need to be assisted with eating. The conversation is always, “Well, they're at that age,” or “It's dementia.” There's always some kind of an excuse. What I feel is that each person should be treated with dignity and have a quality of life and a quality of death. Each day should be a day of joy until that point when they are no longer living. We shouldn't be discriminating based on their age.
I've had a conversation with a doctor who said that in some cases, age discrimination goes to somebody in their sixties. I'm sorry, but I feel that somebody in their sixties is still a young person with a lot of value.
Who gets to decide? I think no one should be making that decision or making a judgment in terms of the quality of care that the person is getting.