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461Privatization
and COVID-19: A Deadly Combination for Nursing Homes
workers to move in close to residents and to each other, whether or
not they are providing personal care. Curtains do not protect resi-
dents from witnessing the death of others sharing their room. Spaces
to accommodate and commemorate death are critical but mostly
non-existent.
Shared washrooms, especially down the hall, put an extra bur-
den and risk on staff. Many homes have no extra room for quaran-
tine in light of admission policies that push homes to fill all rooms
as quickly as possible, in hours rather than days. Dining rooms are
often crowded, leaving very little space among residents and staff or
between tables. Outdoor spaces are often locked, in part because there
is not enough staff to keep watch. The only TVs and computers are
often in shared spaces. Many homes have only small, cramped spaces
for staff to get away for the respite that is especially necessary now.
Sharing these spaces translates into close contact among workers.
Similarly, the way laundry is physically located, shared, and
organized has an impact on infection and other risks for both resi-
dents and workers.39 If it is collected in hallways before being shipped
out to a service, it can constitute a particular risk of transmission,
especially in these times. Food services that are contracted out, with
the workers and the food itself imported from outside the home, may
involve workers moving from floor to floor. These workers may not
have special infection training or PPE.
Another obvious working condition is access to equipment,
including but not limited to PPE. Those working in long-term care
have the highest rates of absences due to illness and injury of any
industry, in part because the equipment needed for lifts and transfers
is not accessible or because they do not have the time to use it as pre-
scribed. Here, too, space is important. Many rooms make it difficult to
move equipment into place without close personal contact, or to even
use the equipment required. Then there is the lack of time necessary
to sanitize equipment to prevent spread. Legal cases recently taken
against for-profit homes by unions speak to their failure to provide
the needed equipment, not the least of which is PPE.40
39. Armstrong & Day, supra note 31.
40. Ontario Labour Relations Board, OLRB Case No: 0091-20-HS, OLRB Case No
0092-20-HS, OLRB Case No 0093-20-HS; OntarioÂ
Nurses’Â
AssociationÂ
vÂ
ParticipatingÂ
Nursing Homes, 2019 ONSC 2168, Divisional Court File NO.: 362/16 and 364/16.
See also Katherine Lippel, this volume, Chapter E-3.
VULNERABLE
The Law, Policy and Ethics of COVID-19
- Title
- VULNERABLE
- Subtitle
- The Law, Policy and Ethics of COVID-19
- Authors
- Vanessa MacDonnell
- Jane Philpott
- Sophie Thériault
- Sridhar Venkatapuram
- Publisher
- Ottawa Press
- Date
- 2020
- Language
- English
- License
- CC BY-NC-ND 4.0
- ISBN
- 9780776636429
- Size
- 15.2 x 22.8 cm
- Pages
- 648
- Categories
- Coronavirus
- International