Thank you very much.
In Canada, we are fortunate we have the capacity to call upon the Canadian Forces in crisis.
I'm thankful they stepped up to provide care in nursing homes during the first wave of the pandemic, going into unfamiliar and besieged care settings with little time to prepare. I'm grateful they stabilized parts of the long-term care system that had moved into deep crisis, preventing further suffering and unnecessary death. I am grateful they fulfilled their duty to report, and that those stark reports riveted the attention of Canadians and our leaders on the unfolding catastrophe.
In Canada, over 80% of total COVID deaths have been in long-term care, far outpacing any other country in the world. How could this happen? It could happen only by valuing older adults, and in particular older adults with dementia, less, and only by valuing nursing home care less than the care in hospitals and ICUs.
We knew early in the pandemic that things in care homes were not good and could quickly become catastrophically worse, that attention and action favoured the young and the hospitals, and that decades of inattention, of managing on the thinnest of razor edges, had created these conditions. Still, when the military reports of COVID conditions in nursing homes came out, we gasped, we wept, and for some, a smouldering rage began. I regret that our men and women of the armed services had to step in, but I'm glad they did.
Our governments and our society have known, or should have known, what was happening. For example, the Royal Society of Canada report on COVID-19 and the future of long-term care identified over 150 media reports in the last 10 years about the state of nursing homes in this country. For over 50 years, reports of abuse, insufficient resources, neglect and so on in long-term care have been produced by governments, organizations, unions and the media. In the last three decades alone, over 80 Canadian reports have been produced at considerable cost and common themes have emerged, but little has been done. Every event was seen as an independent and siloed occurrence, and not part of systemic and long-standing problems.
At the heart of the long-term care and workforce challenges, in addition to ageism, is also undisguised sexism. Caring for the elderly in long-term care is considered “just women's work” that anybody can do. This is, of course, patently false. This is complex, demanding and skilled work. It is delivered by personal support workers of whom over 90% are older women and over 50% are immigrants. They are paid the poorest of any worker in the health system, often without benefits or the security of a full-time position, with poor preparation and little to no ongoing education. It's our modern-day workforce of the 17th-century Elizabethan poorhouse.
Before I end, I want to speak briefly to mental health among the military and civilian workers under COVID conditions. We know they are facing and will continue to face mental health challenges. In Italy, early estimates of moderate to severe anxiety and PTSD among long-term care workers approaches 50%. Mild symptoms approach 90%. These effects will linger for years and decades, but they will be less devastating if we act now to support the front-line workers and the older adults in care homes who have survived.
I am pleased to see support for the mental health and well-being of military personnel who were on a temporary assignment. We must turn now to the mental health and well-being of long-term care staff on permanent assignment, who have no such support.
In conclusion, I want to thank the standing committee for inviting me. The long-term care system into which we place our cherished loved ones has endured long-standing neglect because of undisguised discrimination toward the old and toward the women who do the honourable work of caregiving.
COVID-19 conditions in nursing homes have brought forth the deepest existential fear of many Canadians—the fear of dying alone. Just as Passchendaele has come to symbolize the senseless slaughter and unimaginable suffering of Canadians who served, COVID-19 in nursing homes has come to symbolize unnecessary death and senseless suffering among those who built Canadian society and who worked to make this one of the most desirable countries in the world in which to live.
We do not need more commissions, inquiries or reports. What we need is a modern-day equivalent of a bold Marshall plan and its resources to accomplish a root and branch overhaul of the long-term care system. If we do nothing, then once the vaccines are administered, once COVID-19 has passed, once memories fade, once new priorities take centre stage, nursing homes will return to pre-COVID conditions until the next virus. It doesn't have to be this way.
Our oldest citizens can live serenely, enjoying the last stage of life in nursing homes where their carers have time to contribute to the quality of their lives and to provide high-quality care. We can choose which it will be.
Thank you.