B.C.’s restart plan got a thumbs up from business leaders this week but has received a fail from some seniors home residents and their families who say the four-stage plan to ease COVID-19 restrictions neglected to mention details for what would happen with long-term care facilities.
Victoria’s Brenda Brophy, who became a relentless advocate for seniors in care after she pulled her now 101-year-old mother Dot Finnerty out of a seniors residence amid visiting restrictions, said she listened to the province’s reopening plan Thursday with delight, then dread.
“Where’s the changes for long-term care visits and getting seniors back to normal life where they can hug all their grandchildren at a birthday gathering or whatever it happens to be?” said Brophy. “There was complete silence on long-term care visitation for these isolated seniors.”
B.C.’s four-stage plan outlines reopening tourism, travel and entertainment, based on increasing vaccinations and decreasing case counts and hospitalizations.
Island Health chief medical health officer Dr. Richard Stanwick said the B.C. Centre for Disease Control, the provincial health officer and medical health officers are discussing a variety of things for long-term care facilities. “We’re looking at tweaking the orders. I think the intent was to focus on the general population first, recognizing that long-term care continues to be a special population, and given the vulnerability and what we’ve seen in terms of missteps, I think the province really wants to make sure we do this right.”
The majority of the nearly 1,700 people who have died of COVID-19 in B.C. have been seniors and residents of seniors care homes. However, a survey last year by B.C. seniors advocate Isobel Mackenzie showed many suffered from isolation and would have preferred the risk of catching COVID-19.
Mackenzie said the problem with the restart plan may be the province believes it reopened visitation on April 1. That’s when the provincial health officer removed a requirement for a single designated visitor and opened visits to multiple family members and friends — a maximum of two adults and a child. Henry also clarified that visits should be a minimum of one hour and take place in a resident’s room where possible.
“The only restriction on visits right now in long-term care are there can only be two at a time — there can be three if the third person is a child — you have to wear a mask, you have to schedule in advance, and you have to do the health care screening,” said Mackenzie.
The next step would be not having to book visits and having as many visitors as wanted in a resident’s room and you don’t have to wear a mask — “we’re not there yet.”
The problem is the different interpretation and application of the provincial health officer’s orders and guidance by care home operators, said Mackenzie.
Last year, care homes varied in their interpretation of guidance on granting residents an essential visitor — only a minority of B.C. families were given the essential visitor designation — while this year families are telling the seniors advocate that some operators are placing restrictions on the time and frequency of visits.
“Most of these places are still restricting visits to 60 minutes,” said Brophy. And while many facilities are providing much more access “there’s such a huge range of inconsistency because they can still get away with doing whatever they want to do.”
