Jane Sustrik remembers the feeling of fear that hung over her in those first few months of the pandemic.
Dozens of residents of her mother’s congregate living home in Edmonton have died of COVID-19, as Sustrik read reports of dire conditions in long-term care homes across the country and the number of residents falling victim to the virus. .
Sustrik was vice president of the United Nurses of Alberta before leaving her job to be a full-time caregiver for her mother in the group home. That was just before she hit COVID-19.
At the time, he remembers saying, “My biggest fear is that we don’t learn anything from this.”
“I feel now that we have learned a lot from COVID,” Sustrik said in a recent interview. “But we haven’t done anything with it.”
Teams of experts have been working since last year to craft national long-term care standards to reflect those hard-won pandemic lessons and offer Canadians better, safer lives in group homes.
They are now putting the finishing touches on two sets of standards, but the question remains what the federal government intends to do once they are finished.
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The Health Standards Organization and the CSA Group, formerly the Canadian Standards Association, are expected to approve the final version of the standards in a matter of weeks and will be published in December.
Dr. Samir Sinha, who chairs the HSO’s panel of long-term care experts, said he has spoken with federal ministers on file who have expressed enthusiasm for the work so far, but will not commit to requiring the standards. until they are finished.
The Liberals promised to legislate long-term care security during the last election, and that promise is a condition of the party’s supply and confidence deal with the NDP to avoid an election before 2025.
The feds are silent on enforcement as national long-term care standards receive final “touch-ups.” #CDNPoli #LongTermCareHomes
The office of Health Minister Jean-Yves Duclos referred questions about the government’s pledge to Health Canada, which did not say whether the government plans to introduce legislation in the House of Commons this fall.
“We want to see action on this immediately,” NDP leader Jagmeet Singh told a news conference on Thursday. “We need to see the standard of care legislated and we want it to be implemented as quickly as possible.”
The agreement between the two sides does not include a timetable for the new legislation, nor details about what it should contain.
Sustrik said better standards are needed immediately. People have already become complacent about long-term care conditions, even as outbreaks continue in homes, she said.
“We’re back to where we were before again,” he said. “I feel like nothing has happened. So if we could get some decent standards in long-term care, it’s absolutely vital.”
The government set aside $3 billion in the 2021 budget to help provinces and territories implement the standards when they are complete, and Health Canada said in a statement that any legislation will be designed to reflect the provinces’ jurisdiction over the industry.
Sinha and CSA Group committee chairman Alex Mihailidis say the standards will be very similar to drafts released earlier this year, with some minor “tweaks.”
The standards address all aspects of life in long-term care, from infection prevention and control to staff working conditions, food and visitor policies.
CSA Group received 2,000 comments on the draft after it was released earlier in the year, Mihailidis said, with most reinforcing the approach the committee was already taking.
He believes the standards will help slow the transmission of COVID-19 and other disease outbreaks.
“I think there could be a difference going forward, obviously if and when the standard is implemented,” he said.
This report from The Canadian Press was first published on August 4, 2022.