VANCOUVER - Canada should aim to become completely self-sufficient in producing masks and other essential medical supplies needed during pandemics and rely on the country’s forest industry—not its oil industry—to get the job done, says the BC office of the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives.
Health, health care system, pharmacare
COVID-19 has further exposed the disproportionate care responsibilities shouldered by women in our province. From frontline workers, to parents, women are the face of COVID-19 both as warriors battling the frontline but also in the private, domestic sphere of life. Even before COVID-19 women in Manitoba were experiencing the cuts and changes to the health care system disproportionately. And for the trans and non-binary community these are felt even harder and with greater discrimination which warrants not just discussion but action.
The heart-breaking tragedy of multiple COVID-19 deaths in Canadian long-term care facilities, and the often-horrific manner in which those deaths have occurred, are evidence of what appears to have become “normal” in many of those facilities.
The COVID-19 crisis offers an opportunity to create a new, better normal at Canadian long-term residential care facilities.
The report’s short-term recommendations include: making all staff permanent and limiting their work to one nursing home; raising staff wages and benefits, especially sick leave; rapidly providing testing for all those living, working or visiting in homes; ensuring access to protective equipment immediately; and severely limiting transfers from hospitals.
TORONTO –– The COVID-19 crisis offers an opportunity to create a new, better normal at Canadian long-term residential care facilities, according to a new background report released today by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA).
Evidence collected over more than a decade suggests there are a number of short- and medium-term interventions at hand that would improve conditions for residents and the workers who support them.
Ontario needs to spend at least $58 million more a month to fix long-term care staffing crisis: CCPA
TORONTO – As the COVID-19 death toll mounts, the Ontario government must immediately spend at least $58 million more a month on staffing to help save the lives of seniors in long-term care homes, the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA) says.
Photo by Elvert Barnes (Flickr Creative Commons)
Illustration by Maura Doyle
Sometimes it takes one crisis to bring another into the light.
In our first issue following the outbreak of COVD-19 in Canada, Monitor contributors assess the federal and provincial government responses to date and propose how we might use this moment of government activism to fix the gross inequalities in our society—by improving social programs such as employment insurance, income assistance and our health care system, for example.
The COVID-19 pandemic has in less than four months spread throughout the globe and altered both the daily lives of citizens and the economy of many countries, including Canada.
Media reports through all platforms cover COVID-19 extensively, in fact there is not much else in the news these days. While there are many storylines and many workers bravely continuing to provide essential services on the frontlines, the epicenter here in Canada in these early weeks of the pandemic are two long-term care facilities.