Retirement home with Hamilton’s fewest staff vaccinated says city failed to count them as ‘high risk’

The Hamilton retirement home with the city's lowest staff vaccination rate says public health failed to include them in the early rollout of COVID-19 vaccines.

Highgate Residence of Ancaster is one of four seniors' homes in Hamilton with 100 per cent of its residents vaccinated. But only 1.1 per cent of its staff are vaccinated - by far, the lowest number in the city.

Don't slam it on our faces that it's our fault that our staff are not vaccinated," says administrator Christoph Summer. Our staff want to be vaccinated ... They didn't have a choice."

Recently, public health released vaccination rates for both staff and residents at individual long-term-care and retirement homes in the city. While vaccinations among residents at both types of homes is above 90 per cent at each facility listed, staff vaccinations range widely.

The numbers are an estimated snapshot" as of March 8 based on data self-reported by the homes. Additional staff may also have been vaccinated after public health's report date.

Though the reasons behind staff vaccination levels at seniors' homes are complex, Summer suggests the vaccine rollout played a role as the facility was not included as a high-risk" retirement home when it should have been.

When asked by The Spectator, public health did not say if it initially missed Highgate in its inclusion of high-risk homes, only saying they added the facility in that category once they were made aware of the home's memory unit."

Summer says Highgate submitted a list of the home's staff who wanted to be vaccinated to public health in the beginning of January. At this time, the clinic at Hamilton Health Sciences (HHS) was vaccinating staff at long-term-care and high-risk" retirement homes.

Public health defines high-risk" retirement homes as those attached to a long-term-care facility, or homes with a memory-care unit. Highgate has a memory-care unit, which at the time had 17 residents, according to Summer.

But Summer says his staff didn't initially receive appointments at HHS.

They were all asking, When do I get my phone call?'" Summer said. Nobody got a call."

Then, when the city's mobile clinic launched on Jan. 10, public health announced that all long-term-care and high-risk retirement home residents would be vaccinated that month. Public health estimated approximately 4,900 residents in 37 facilities, including 27 long-term-care homes and 10 high-risk retirement homes, would be vaccinated, along with essential caregivers and staff.

On Jan. 17, Summer was informed by public health that because of supply issues with the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, the province had instructed that only residents, staff and caregivers in long-term-care and high-risk retirement homes would receive vaccines. Other retirement homes would not receive mobile clinics by Jan. 21, the email noted.

Summer followed up to confirm that Highgate was a high-risk home. In response, he was told that public health was not made aware" that the home had a memory unit.

I am deeply sorry," said an email from a nursing supervisor for public health's vaccine program. The email noted Highgate was not previously included in the high-risk category, but the error had been corrected" and the home was booked for a mobile clinic on Jan. 21.

When that clinic came, public health's priority was to vaccinate Highgate residents - and only one dose was left over for staff, Summer said, though he'd sent a list of 67 of the home's 85 staff to be vaccinated.

In an email, public health spokesperson James Berry said Highgate staff were not vaccinated at the home's mobile clinic on Jan. 21 due to vaccine supply."

The intention was to vaccinate long-term-care and high-risk retirement home residents," said Berry. Leftover doses would be given to eligible staff on-site.

After the opportunity to receive a vaccination opened up again to staff, there have been repeated communications out to health-care workers to register directly through the health-care worker portal," Berry said. We encourage health-care workers, including staff at Highgate Residence of Ancaster, to register for a vaccine appointment through our health-care worker registration portal."

Berry did not say whether some seniors' homes had more vaccines available to staff than others.

Summer said once the city launched an online portal for health-care workers to register for vaccines, more of his staff have received them. As of March 16, he said about 25 Highgate staff had received their first dose.

Even though the administrator is happy" all his residents were inoculated, Summer says public health's omission prevented his staff and residents from being vaccinated sooner.

If they would have not lost our list, then we would've had our staff and residents vaccinated before we would have run out of vaccines."

Maria Iqbal's reporting is funded by the Canadian government through its Local Journalism Initiative. The funding allows her to report on stories focused on aging issues. Reach her via email: miqbal@thespec.com.