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How flaws in the way Ontario’s nursing homes are run put residents and staff at risk of COVID-19

Experts and advocates warned for years about chronic understaffing, precarious working conditions and poor workplace safety.

6 min to read
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The Pinecrest Nursing Home in Bobcaygeon, Ont. Officials have called the outbreak there the largest in the province. Thirty-five residents at the home are showing symptoms and two have died.

Experts and advocates warned for years that chronic understaffing, precarious working conditions, and poor workplace safety at nursing homes put Ontario’s vulnerable elders and the workers who care for them at risk. Now the COVID-19 pandemic is exploiting those flaws.

At least eight nursing and retirement homes in the province are battling outbreaks of the coronavirus — including one in a Bobcaygeon facility that health officials have called the largest outbreak in the province. Thirty-five residents at the home are showing symptoms and two have died, with warnings more deaths may come.

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Health-care workers at Rouge Valley Centenary hospital tend to a resident of the Seven Oaks long-term-care home in 2005 after the home experienced a deadly outbreak of Legionnaires disease.

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A woman in her 90s who lives at St. Joseph's at Fleming long-term-care home has also tested positive for COVID-19, medical officer of health Dr. Rosana Salvaterra said, and is in isolation at the facility on Brealey Drive in the city's southwest end as seen on Thursday March 26, 2020 in Peterborough, Ont.

Kate Allen

Kate Allen is a Toronto-based reporter covering climate change for the Star. Follow her on Twitter: @katecallen.

Sara Mojtehedzadeh

Sara Mojtehedzadeh is a Toronto-based reporter covering work and wealth on the Star’s investigations team. Follow her on Twitter: @saramojtehedz.

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