Premier Doug Ford is promising to ramp up
COVID-19 testing for residents of long-term care, homeless shelters, group homes for people with disabilities, and for pregnant women and patients undergoing dialysis or chemotherapy.
But vulnerable seniors in assisted living are on their own.
There has been no mention of assisted housing, a small subset of homes funded by Local Health Integrated Networks, (LHINs), where seniors in apartments rely on personal support workers to help with daily needs such as bathing, dressing and eating.
Advocates want the government to give assisted-living homes the same COVID directives as those given to nursing homes.
Recent protections aimed at long-term care include expanded COVID-19 testing, surgical masks for all workers, and, starting next week, a 14-day rule requiring the mostly part-time workforce report to one home only, to stop the spread of the virus.
British Columbia recently imposed a similar one-site order, but unlike Ontario, it did not add an expiry date, saying the rule will continue “until further notice.”
Leaders in the assisted living sector, such as Patrick O’Neill, CEO of the Niagara Ina Grafton Gage Village in St. Catharines, said his residents are just as fragile as those living in long-term care but are being overlooked.
“The issue is the government has not recognized that these areas are as risky as (long-term care),” O’Neill said.