Doug Ford requests army help at Ontario nursing homes hit hard by COVID-19
Ontario is making a formal request to the federal government for help from the Canadian Armed Forces at five nursing homes hit hard by COVID-19, Premier Doug Ford says.
The move comes a week after Ford declared the new coronavirus was speeding through long-term care like a "wildfire," and would see troops help with staffing relief, medical care and daily operations.
There have been at least 400 deaths in Ontario nursing homes and the virus has taken deeper hold in recent weeks, easily spreading in the facilities.
"Every set of boots on the ground will make a difference in this fight," Ford said Wednesday, more than a week after indicating the province did not need to call in the army.
"As we need more resources we're bringing more resources in," he added, noting long-term care "is where the crisis is."
It was not immediately clear if the federal government would grant a request, and whether it has the capacity to supply the assistance Ontario is seeking from the armed forces as well as the Public Health Agency of Canada.
Ford did not specify a number of troops or public health experts he would like to deploy but said they would form a "small part" of the provincial response.
Front-line workers in nursing homes are working extra days and long hours, he said. "They need a rest and they need support."
Long-Term Care Minister Merrillee Fullerton repeatedly refused to name the five homes where troops could be sent.
"That military assistance will go to the homes that are in the greatest need," she told reporters.
There are outbreaks in at least 128 nursing homes, with several experiencing more than two dozen deaths and large numbers of new cases in residents and staff.
"Staffing is an issue in most homes," acknowledged Fullerton, a former family doctor.
The province has already arranged for "SWAT teams" from hospitals to go into a number of nursing homes that desperately need help, including 40 in Toronto alone.
Infection-control teams have gone into 31 nursing homes and more than 30 homes have received assistance with infection-control measures, staffing and personal protective equipment. University Health Network in Toronto has sent 70 nurses, social workers and doctors to nursing homes in the city.
Ontario is also planning to test every resident in the province's 626 nursing homes, along with more staff, as COVID-19 takes an increasing toll in long-term care, according to a new directive from top health officials.
It's a further increase in testing from measures announced last week, which included testing every resident with symptoms, their roommates, those in adjacent rooms and staff on the unit, among others as necessary, along with testing of all residents in 21 homes.
The goal is to get a more accurate picture of the virus amid concerns that COVID-19 spread stealthily and gained a deadlier foothold because of a lack of testing and protective measures for vulnerable seniors, who are often harder to diagnose because they don't get high fevers from the illness and have pre-existing shortness of breath and coughs.
"The province will immediately begin proactive surveillance testing to understand the current status of COVID-19 in individual homes, including the targeted testing of asymptomatic residents and staff," said a memo dated Tuesday from chief medical officer Dr. David Williams and the deputy ministers of health and long-term care.
Each public health unit should immediately begin developing a plan to test every resident and staff member at each long-term-care home, and implement it as soon as possible, the memo says.
"While testing of residents should be a priority, the implementation plan should also enable an understanding of the prevalence of COVID-19 amongst staff, particularly asymptomatically."
Timelines for the testing were not revealed. With labs in the province currently testing about 10,000 samples a day, and aiming for 14,000 daily by the end of the month, it would take two weeks to test all 77,000 residents and tens of thousands of staff in long-term care homes if they were to be the only subjects of testing - a prospect that is highly unlikely.
Ford insisted "we have all the resources" to do the testing.
The priority will be the handful of homes with multiple deaths and the more than 100 nursing homes in outbreak mode with residents and staff exhibiting symptoms, says the memo which calls on local health units to use "local supports" such as paramedics to help with the testing.
Experts have long raised concerns that testing in nursing homes was inadequate and the number of cases dramatically under-reported.
"I have no doubt that we are underestimating the cases in homes by a huge order of magnitude," said Dr. Nathan Stall, a geriatrician and researcher at Sinai Health System. "I think the outbreak size is going to (prove to) be much larger than we have had data to show thus far."
He called COVID-19 "a silent and almost invisible scourge."
Stall acknowledged there are significant logistical challenges involved to increase testing in nursing homes, which the province will need to quickly overcome in terms of acquiring enough swabs, testers, and laboratory capacity in a system plagued by test shortages and delays.
But the rollout of universal testing inside long term care facilities will finally shine a light on the scale of the outbreak in these vulnerable communities, he said.
"Just at the most fundamental level, we'll have an understanding across the province of what exactly is going on in nursing homes," he said. "Because it doesn't seem like testing is done until tragedy happens for the most part. Right now, we've just been scratching at multiple incomplete pieces of information to put the puzzle together and that's been really challenging."
A Star compilation from health units across the province at 11 a.m. Wednesday showed another 361 confirmed or probable cases of COVID-19, an increase of 3.6 per cent in the previous 24 hours to a total of 13,163 since the outbreak began.
There were another 39 deaths, bringing the total fatalities to 715.
At least 399 deaths have been in long-term care with outbreaks in 128 homes, associate medical officer of health Dr. Barbara Yaffe said Tuesday.
Ministry of Health statistics released Wednesday said, to date, there have been 2,339 cases of COVID-19 in nursing homes, with 1,587 residents and 748 staff infected, and one death of a personal support worker at a home in Scarborough last week.
Rob Ferguson is a Toronto-based reporter covering Ontario politics. Follow him on Twitter: @robferguson1
Jennifer Yang is a Toronto-based reporter covering identity and inequality. Follow her on Twitter: @jyangstar