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Mrs. Shelby Kramp-Neuman (Hastings—Lennox and Addington, CPC)

Apr/25/22 11:14:10 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I would like to thank the hon. member for Avalon for bringing this incredibly important issue to the floor of the House of Commons. It goes without saying that the issue of long-term care is perhaps, along with the cost of living, one of the issues heard most from concerned constituents by all members in this place. The population in my riding of Hastings—Lennox and Addington has one of the highest percentages of seniors in this country. If we couple that statistic with the rural nature of a large majority of the riding, suitable housing for seniors is a real issue. Not only do we need to make sure there are enough beds in facilities, but we need to ensure that those facilities are spread throughout the riding to accommodate the decentralized population centres across thousands of kilometres of Hastings—Lennox and Addington. Many of my rural counterparts do not benefit from having the centralized smaller footprints of our urban colleagues, which means much more costly overhead in terms of capital and staff in getting our facilities set up. While this is certainly daunting, recently Hastings—Lennox and Addington served as a good example of how the provinces can start the process on their own. Recently, the Ontario government announced $1.8 million of additional funding for long-term care facilities in Hastings—Lennox and Addington, and Kingston and the Islands. This affects over 500 beds across these two ridings, and I am sure my colleague for Kingston and the Islands would be happy to join me in thanking the Conservative government of Doug Ford for this very important investment in long-term care across our riding. While this is certainly a positive step in the right direction, far more work needs to be done in Hastings—Lennox and Addington and across our country. The reality of the situation is that the COVID-19 pandemic shed a jarring light on a problem that has been festering in Canada for decades. It was the dirty little secret that millions of Canadians did not want to acknowledge: Many of their parents were living in dismal conditions in our long-term care facilities. In my opinion, the most eye-opening example of this was when the Ontario and Quebec governments called in the military to provide logistical support for their overworked caregivers in Operation Laser. Following this deployment, the Canadian Armed Forces released a document that contained five annexes titled observation reports. These chronicled concerning shortcomings that were further exacerbated by COVID-19 at five long-term care facilities. I want to apologize to my colleagues for the graphic nature of much of these reports, but as someone responsible for the seniors' portfolio, I believe that it is incumbent on me to remind the House of the contents of the reports and read them into the record. I want to reiterate that while the following excerpts are, for lack of a better term, horrific, they are not indicative of all facilities. However, the fact is that these situations occurred. Even if they were isolated instances, it is one time too many. In the first facility, the report noted the following, among many other issues: Reusing hypodermoclysis supplies even after sterility has been obviously compromised (e.g. a catheter pulled out and on the floor for an undetermined amount of time); Poor palliative care standards—inadequate dosing intervals for some medications... Generally very poor peri-catheterization care reported. Example: retracting penis foreskin to clean isn't happening on a widespread level. CAF have found nearly a dozen incidents of bleeding fungal infections.... Extra soaker pad: residents who routinely soil their bed despite incontinence products are not permitted to have an extra soaker pad or towel...to help protect sheets and blankets from soiling.... [The] rationalization used is that an extra pad is undignified.... New staff that have been brought to LTCF haven't been trained or oriented. [LTCF] is “severely understaffed during day due to resident comorbidities and needs.... [Medical doctors] not present and have to be accessed by phone.... CAF [members] have witnessed aggressive behaviour, which ACC staff assessed as abusive or inappropriate. In a second facility, the following were noted: Little to no disinfection had been conducted at the facility prior to CAF operations. Significant gross fecal contamination was noted in numerous patient rooms; Insect infestation was noted within [the long-term care facility]—ants and cockroaches plus unknown observed; Delayed changing soiled residents, leading to skin breakdown.... Forceful feeding observed by staff causing audible choking/aspiration, forceful hydration observed by staff causing audible choking/aspiration; Patients observed crying for help with staff not responding for 30 minutes to over two hours.... SNO reported incident of patients' enteral feed bottle not being changed for so long the contents had become foul and coagulated; date and expiration of the contents not noted on the bottle; SNO reported incident of permanent catheter being in situ three weeks beyond scheduled change date.... and, [Personal support workers] often rushed and leave food on table, but patients often cannot reach or cannot feed themselves, therefore missing meals or not receiving meals for hours. This is just a small section of the report covering two specific facilities. It is disturbing, yet these same scenes are being played out across our nation and have been going on for decades. We in this nation seem to be content with treating our senior citizens, the people who literally built this country and raised our entire nation, no better than we would treat an animal. It is a national tragedy and a national shame that thousands of Canadian seniors consider the previously mentioned incidents to be part of regular life. As I have previously mentioned in the House, in 2018, the Standing Committee on Human Resources, Skills and Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities released a report entitled, “Advancing Inclusion and Quality of Life for Seniors”. That report identified a number of issues surrounding long-term care and suggested a number of actionable recommendations to address those issues. It is extremely unfortunate that, over four years later, we are still moving motions to crassly declare our great outrage over an issue this Parliament was directly made aware of at the time, but did not move fast enough to address. Unfortunately, it seems to be the modus operandi of the current government to move a non-instructive motion, develop a framework, strike a working group, create a road map and do anything except actually address the issue at hand. This year's budget is another perfect example of this mentality. Despite all of the grandstanding from the government about it having the backs of our seniors, it provided $20 million in its support for seniors budget line. That is $20 million out of $56.6 billion in proposed new spending. To put that into perspective, for every dollar the government has proposed to spend, Canadian seniors get less than half of a tenth of a cent. To finish off, I would like to reiterate that I am not assigning blame to my hon. friend across the way who moved this very important motion, but more so to his colleagues on the front bench, who dither away while our Canadian seniors are suffering. I really want to thank him for bringing this motion to the floor. I hope that he will continue to advocate for Canadian seniors and press his caucus colleagues into meaningful action on this file.

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House Hansard - 57