The mud-slinging attacks on long-term care operators seems to be reaching a peak, leaving the unstated but obvious implication that the operators of these homes and care facilities are somehow responsible for the COVID-19 deaths of thousands of elderly Canadians. The release this week of the Canadian military’s findings in a few long-term care homes in Ontario and Quebec has been seized upon as the final piece of supposedly compelling evidence of a mismanaged industry associated with up to 80 per cent of Canada’s 6,700 coronavirus deaths.
Fed by the media and assorted critics of the long-term-care system and their government regulators, the attack amounts to a slanderous smear that conveniently avoids the real reason so many vulnerable aging Canadians are now dead.
It certainly cannot be pegged to the LTC industry. The elderly death toll has a variety of causes, but the main question is: How many of these deaths could have been avoided if Ottawa — the chief science player in this pandemic — had focused on the specific risk to the elderly rather than attempt to stop the spread of COVID-19 through the whole population?
