The shocking state of care homes in many supposedly advanced countries have so far contributed a lion’s share of COVID-19 deaths.
Why have these poor standards of care, as well as the poor conditions of the care homes themselves, somehow escaped notice?
A large portion of care home residents fall into a “low or no income” category. And yet, for some reason, care homes and their residents are not included in most studies that attempt to tackle the low and no income housing crises that plague many countries.
At a certain age with a certain need for care, it is apparently suitable for older people to become notionally homeless. We no longer think of them as needing a home. Instead, they need a bed.
Care homes are measured in beds, not homes. For example, a recent report estimates that in the United Kingdom, there are currently 460,000 beds. Not homes, beds.
Enter the entrepreneurs of an industry detached from the challenge of housing low and no income citizens in homes of their own. The challenge instead is to warehouse frail seniors in beds.
And because ‘small-government’ politics is built on a foundation that private enterprise ‘can do it better,’ private care home owners join with government to foster a key idea: quality care paid for by government dollars can be delivered more cheaply by private enterprise, while at the same time, delivering a profit to shareholders.
That, at least, has been the public private partnership thinking of the past few decades. Now COVID-19 is definitively demonstrating, over an over again in different countries, that such thinking is horribly, horribly wrong.
In Canada, the military delivered a devastating report on long-term care homes where circumstances had demanded their support. It reduced Ontario premier Doug Ford to tears. Read more at Global News: Ford vows to fix broken long-term care system
Lest we be disarmed by Doug Ford’s tears (which under the circumstances, are undoubtedly genuine) they are not grounds to let Ontario’s Premier off the hook.
The Hill Times puts it nicely, referring not only to Ford but to Canada’s Prime Minister and Quebec’s Premier, all of whom have been expressing emotion lately in the face of care home bad news: When It Comes To Fixing Long-Term Care, Tears Are Not Enough
The Hill Times is normally paywalled (as you will find if you click on the above link, which gets you to a picture of three mopey-looking politicians and not much else).
Currently, however, The Hill Times is offering a free time-limited subscription. If you sign up, read a full and very worthwhile article. Prepare for a long diatribe against classic stall-until-the-problem-goes-away tactics that can usually be depended on from both federal and provincial governments alike.
The Hill Times further points the finger at Doug Ford, leader of a ‘small-government’ style Conservative party. He presided over last year’s $34 million cuts to the long term care home budget in Ontario, as well as cancelling unscheduled inspections. The Ford government’s money-saving actions continue a series of decisions that have made it more and more difficult to provide decent care and support to the residents who call their long term care bed home.
There is a great deal of guilt as well as blame to go around. Doug Ford is most certainly entitled to a share of it.
