Seite - 345 - in VULNERABLE - The Law, Policy and Ethics of COVID-19

345Fault Lines: COVID-19, the Charter, and Long-term Care COVID-19 testing were heavily rationed and, in some cases unavail- able, allowing the virus to spread rapidly among patients and staff, and leading to deadly outbreaks in almost every province.26 As work- ers fell ill or were quarantined, conditions for remaining staff and resi- dents deteriorated further.27 Reports emerged of nurses caring for 20 to 30 residents without assistance, staff working back-to-back 12- and 16-hour shifts; and infected and non-infected residents sharing rooms. By the time health authorities intervened in one Montréal home, “resi- dents were found … unclothed, severely malnourished, dehydrated, without their medication and left in their feces and urine…”28 Patient transfers from hospitals to long-term care facilities did not end in Ontario until a month after the province declared a state of emergency, with “hospital occupancy rates at a historic low … 69%, down from 96% before the pandemic.”29 Only then did the province Nursing Homes”, Globe  and  Mail (14 April 2020), online: <www.theglobeand- mail.com/opinion/editorials/article-how-canada-gave-a-pandemic-the-key- to-the-countrys-nursing-homes/>. For instance, as of April 17, 2020, only 22 of 899 nursing and retirement home residents with COVID-19 in Toronto were being treated in hospital and, as of May 12, only 24 of 364 cases of COVID-19 in long-term care in Alberta had been hospitalized; Grant & Ha, supra note 5. 26. Kathy Tomlinson & Grant Robertson, “It Took a Pandemic: Why Systemic Deficiencies in Long-term Care Facilities Pose such a Danger to our Seniors”, Globe  and  Mail (27 April 2020), online: <www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/ article-it-took-a-pandemic-why-systemic-deficiencies-in-long-term-care/>; Rachel D’Amore, “Coronavirus: Hospital cleaners, admin workers need PPE too, unions say”, Global  News (7 April 2020), online: <globalnews.ca/news/6787770/ coronavirus-canada-protective-equipment-cleaners-admin-workers/>. 27. Grant & Ha, supra note 5; Murray Brewster & Vassy Kapelos, “Military Alleges Horrific Conditions, Abuse in Pandemic-hit Ontario Nursing Homes”, CBC News (26 May 2020), online: <www.cbc.ca/news/politics/long-term-care-pandemic- covid-coronavirus-trudeau-1.5584960>. 28. Jillian Kestler-D’Amours, “Canada: How Quebec Elder Care Homes Became Coronavirus Hotspots”, Al Jazeera (24 April 2020), online: <www.aljazeera. com/indepth/features/canada-quebec-elder-care-homes-coronavirus- hotspots-200423214537289.html>; Lorian Hardcastle, “Opinion: COVID-19 Lays Bare Poor Conditions in Long-term Care Homes”, Edmonton Journal (24 April 2020), online: <edmontonjournal.com/opinion/columnists/opinion-covid-19-lays- bare-poor-conditions-in-long-term-care-homes/>; Ha, supra note 24; Andrew Rankin, “Nova Scotia Delayed Implementing Federal COVID-19 Guidelines for Long-term Care Homes”, The Chronicle Herald (1 May 2020), online: <www.the- chronicleherald.ca/news/provincial/ns-government-delayed-implementing-fed- eral-covid-19-guidelines-for-long-term-care-homes-444709/>; Elizabeth Payne, “Nurses Raise Concerns About Care Home”, Ottawa  Citizen (8 May 2020) A4. 29. Ha, supra note 24; Laura Stone, Karen Howlett & Les Perreaux, “Ontario Places Pause on Transfers from Hospitals to Seniors’ Facilities; Quebec Issues Third Plea for Military Aid”, Globe  and  Mail (16 April 2020), online: <www.theglobeandmail.