The people who are going to die from COVID should get the vaccine first, says Mount Hope family

A sitting duck is how Susan Matteucci describes her younger brother vulnerable to COVID in shared assisted living.

The virus has shown it strikes with devastating precision in congregate settings, so for nearly 11 months, her family has feared COVID finding its way into his Hamilton home and infecting the residents who have physical disabilities and other underlying health conditions.

You're just trapped," Matteucci said about her 54-year-old brother who has spent most of the pandemic locked down. It's awful."

The vulnerability of her brother has Matteucci pleading for residents like him to be put closer to the front of the vaccine line.

I just don't understand why they're not prioritizing (them) right from the get go," she said. The people who are going to die from this should get it first."

Matteucci takes no issue with residents of long-term care and high-risk retirement homes being vaccinated already.

But it has angered and saddened her to see non-front-line staff at some Ontario hospitals protected before those isolated and most at risk in residential care, assisted living and supportive housing.

I am very disturbed about the priority of the vaccine distribution in Ontario and Hamilton," she said. I believe that health and government officials have been giving out the precious, limited doses of the vaccine to people who are not the most vulnerable."

In Hamilton, hospital staff evaluated for themselves which priority group they fell into and neither Hamilton Health Sciences nor St. Joseph's Healthcare has said how many were wrongly vaccinated first as a result.

There have been loopholes that people have taken advantage of to get the vaccine," said Matteucci. These people could have waited ... Vulnerable people should have been vaccinated first."

Both hospitals say a majority of their workforce put themselves in the right group, but neither has provided a breakdown nor any data of the 6,500 inoculated.

I absolutely think people should be vaccinated who are in the line of fire," Matteucci said about those legitimately at the front of the line.

But she includes her brother and his fellow residents among that group.

They're stuck, they're sitting ducks," she said. They can't do anything about it."

She described her family's alarm when they realized a shortage of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine was going to stall the rollout.

We all started panicking," she said. They have no idea when they're going to be vaccinated."

Now, there are holdups with the Moderna vaccine as well.

I have a growing sense of panic about the safety of my brother and others in situations like my brother," said Matteucci.

Her voice wavers when she talks about what the last year has been like for her brother, mostly locked down in his home only going out for medical appointments and rarely able to visit family.

His mental health is declining," she says.

Three times her brother has had to quarantine to his room due to exposures to the virus - once by a visiting nurse.

Quarantine for my brother means being isolated in a small room for 14 days," says Matteucci. He was not able to use the bathroom - he had to use a commode in his room. He had to eat alone and was not allowed to talk to or socialize with anyone. The PSWs were only able to enter his room twice per shift for feeding and care, so he had to wait for extra drinks of water or other requests."

It was only January that her brother moved to the home which Matteucci calls a wonderful place for him to be."

The staff there are fabulous," she says. It's clean and they care for him.

Her brother, who has cerebral palsy, lived with her mom until August 2019, when a sudden decline in his health brought him to Hamilton General and ultimately to a six-month-long stay at St. Peter's Hospital, where it only got worse.

Originally, he was going to be sent to long-term care, but his family advocated for assisted living instead.

He's an active curious person," said Matteucci. It was horrifying to think he was going to have to go to a long-term-care home."

They were relieved when he got into the congregate living setting instead. But COVID hit only two months later.

He had just moved there so he had a really hard time," said Matteucci. This transition has just been awful for him ... This just compounds everything."

Matteucci's brother and his twin are the youngest of five children and the close family drops his favourite things off to him, but doesn't visit to keep him safe.

My brother and the other residents of the home need this vaccine ASAP," said Matteucci. It might give them some peace of mind and a little bit more freedom."

Joanna Frketich is a Hamilton-based reporter covering health for The Spectator. Reach her via email: jfrketich@thespec.com