Sunday 19 April 2020
80% of Canada's long Term Care facilities are private/for profit - is the death toll an accident?
Since profit is the primary motivation for much of the Canadian long term care [LTC] industry it is no surprise that such homes are less well resourced and managed than they could and should be, particularly of course in critical times like the present. The current Ontario public health officer has stated that the problem of long term care deaths is not a matter of will but of resources. But why spend your resource money on voluntary possibilities when your purpose is profit? Much sanctimony is now being expressed by certain Canadian leaders about their care for the elderly who are bearing the brunt of the COVID 19 pandemic, but the evidence shows that those most victimized are so for predictable reasons. As, on the whole, relatively limited contributors to economic GDP they, like the homeless, are not a social priority and so they are left to the devices of the market place, where the rich, who can pay, may survive, while others do not. The latest information about the LTC sector shows that as a result of decades of neoliberal disinvestment by all governments, conditions in the sector have grown worse and the current disaster was waiting to happen.
If crisis is opportunity now is the time to take a further step towards a comprehensive social economy by implementing a rigorous charter for the operation of long term care homes if they remain private and to enhance standards and income support for those that are public or non-profit. The COVID pandemic is only one of several that have afflicted the most vulnerable over the last twenty years - remember SARS and H1N1. Like the others it is one too many and TorontotheBetter calls for future commitment to a "common better" where all are treated with dignity and support at all times. Public investment, so scarce in neoliberal times, is now being released, but unless structural change is made a condition of the investment society will be confronting more crises like COVID in the not too distant future. .
If crisis is opportunity now is the time to take a further step towards a comprehensive social economy by implementing a rigorous charter for the operation of long term care homes if they remain private and to enhance standards and income support for those that are public or non-profit. The COVID pandemic is only one of several that have afflicted the most vulnerable over the last twenty years - remember SARS and H1N1. Like the others it is one too many and TorontotheBetter calls for future commitment to a "common better" where all are treated with dignity and support at all times. Public investment, so scarce in neoliberal times, is now being released, but unless structural change is made a condition of the investment society will be confronting more crises like COVID in the not too distant future. .
# posted by Taodhg @ 11:31 am 
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: Tuesday, April 21, 2020 1:42:00 am
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