CARE-WATCH Aug 15, 2020:News from the front line of Long Term Care

Carol’s Recent Care Watch Printables Aug 12, 2020

QUOTABLES:

As of July 2020, there were 9000 COVID-19 deaths in Canadian long-term care homes. Of those, more than 5600 were in Quebec, and nearly 2800 were in Ontario. British Columbia had less than 200 deaths in LTC facilities

No other country has had 81% of their deaths in long-term care populations. Personal support workers in long-term care are the lowest-paid of anyone in the health-care sector, they do part-time work and they work in several facilities which facilitates spread between the facilities. That’s something that British Columbia picked up right away, but there was no transfer of that learning to Quebec and Ontario.

News

The federal government is granting permanent residency to some asylum seekers who cared for patients in hospitals and long-term care homes at the height of the pandemic last spring, in a one-time program that became more restrictive as Ottawa negotiated with Quebec.

Alberta had hundreds of ‘excess’ deaths as COVID-19 struck province: Stats Canada

‘Minor’ problems still lingering in some Ontario long-term care homes, military says

WIKIPEDIA

Impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on long-term care facilities

As of mid-April 2020, nearly half of the COVID-19 deaths in Canada were at long-term care facilities.^[2] Residences are provincially-regulated, meaning that standards are inconsistent on worker to resident ratios and standards of training.^[3]

Outcomes have varied across a wide range from province to province, with Quebec experiencing an extremely large problem centered around the Island of Montreal (materially affecting national statistics). The populous province of Ontario also experienced a large problem, centered around Toronto.

The western province of British Columbia, with Canada’s third-largest urban center, Vancouver, experienced one of the earliest cases in Canada involving long-term care: a health care worker at the Lynn Valley Care Centre in North Vancouver, announced on 5 March as the first known community transmission in BC. Two days later, the first death from a resident in long-term care was announced in connection with the same facility.

The Indiana State Department of Health has a new digital dashboard, designed to track and check data on COVID-19 cases at long-term care facilities across the Hoosier State.

The new long-term care dashboard, or LTC for short, is in addition to the already-established statewide database.

It seems easy to navigate, and is complete with new and cumulative resident and staff cases and deaths. State leaders say each case will be confirmed with a positive lab test through the department of health.

“Since the verification system takes time, the data presented will lag by one week,” Dr. Dan Rusyniak, chief medical officer of the Indiana Family and Social Services Administration said.

Numbers will be updated every Wednesday, but each facility is still required to submit positive tests within 24 hours of first notice.

The highlight of this new dashboard is the state-wide map. Each dot on the map represents a long-term care facility, and hovering over the dot shows total numbers for each location.

If a facility has less than five cases, the dashboard will not reflect an exact number to protect the privacy of the individuals.

RECENT PRINTABLES

INDEX (CLICK on Carol’s contributed collated collections by date)

	Aug 12, 2020	Aug 3, 2020
JULY 27. 2020	JULY 6,2020	JUNE 30, 2020
JUNE 29, 2020	JUNE 18, 2020	JUNE 17, 2020
May 31, 2020	May 29, 2020	May 15, 2020

Risk Factors Associated With Mortality Among Residents With Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) in Long-term Care Facilities in Ontario, Canada

18 May 2020 Old money Tortoise Thousands of care home residents are dying from Covid-19, and staff are on minimum wage. But in the background, big profits are being made. Ian Birrell investigates a broken industry

Long-Term Care Challenges Europe 2018

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