We've had long-standing issues with staffing shortages across the country. That's not new. However, it became exacerbated during the pandemic, when we saw examples.... One of the strategies used in the provinces was that staff could not be shared across different employers. That is something that impacted workforce numbers. The emotional impact took its toll on some individuals through the pandemic outbreaks and resulted in some who had to leave and others who were assigned to work from home because of exposure concerns.
When we think about the impact on residents, there were other services and a lot of the elements that we might add for activities that enhance quality of life. We use volunteers for support in many ways, and they were not able to enter the home. [Technical difficulty—Editor] designated support person or essential caregiver role was very important in shoring up those efforts.
The impact of social isolation was something we were all gravely concerned about. We used technology as a way to connect residents with families to the best of our ability, but it was an incredibly challenging situation and there were outstanding implications.