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By Dylana Kneeshaw

LONG TERM CARE

Amid B.C.’s vaccination progress, advocates call for gradual opening of long-term care visitation

Mar 22, 2021 | 4:32 PM

KAMLOOPS — With the majority of the province’s long-term care residents and staff now vaccinated — some with two doses — B.C’s Seniors Advocate is hoping visitation rules will be adjusted.

“I think we need to look at, what is the benefit of the vaccine when two vaccinated people are unable to spend meaningful time together?”

Isobel Mackenzie says visitation over the past year could have been managed without blanket restrictions, as many long-term care residents in B.C don’t have close contact family members. Mackenzie says the scope of people who would have been allowed to visit over the last year isn’t as large as once thought.

“Every resident does not have an involved family member and I think that we should have recognized that this was a manageable situation when we took a look at who we needed to connect in a meaningful way,” she explains, “It wasn’t 34,000 residents. It might have been about half who have involved family members that we could have embraced as assets to help us manage this pandemic, rather than view them as an issue or problem that we had to deal with.”

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The Seniors Advocate is hoping to see adjustments to not only improve the mental wellbeing of residents, but bring peace of mind to people who haven’t seen loved ones at all, and those who have tried to make use of half-hour, once per week visits.

“The provincial health order compels operators to follow the guidelines, but the guidelines at the end of the day leaves the decision on essential visits and visitors up to operators,” explains Mackenzie, “and that’s different from other provinces. The decision on an essential visitor really should rest with the resident or their substitute decision maker.”

Mackenzie says her office has heard many heartbreaking stories over the course of the pandemic from people who struggle with the lack of contact.

“If we look at what is the single largest issue that people have expressed, it really is around the quality of the visits. I would say that’s the largest issue closely followed by, ‘I can’t get in to visit at all’, and then I think the issue of not being able to go out for outings.”

Along with visitation guidelines, B.C. Care Providers Association CEO Terry Lake says restrictions around activities within care facilities should also be eased.

“Let people sit together at breakfast and lunch and dinner. Let them have some bingo games or some entertainment. We’ve really got to think about quality of life. Not just preventing harm, but we have to think about the harm from isolation.”

Lake says he’d like to see more coordination between operators, health authorities and the Ministry of Health. For instance, Lake points to recent town halls hosted by Vancouver Coastal Health that sought out input from care providers around how restriction adjustments should be rolled out.

“We know that there’s outreach occurring at least in some health authorities. We have not heard that from Interior Health at this point.”

Lake says care operators are caught between a rock and a hard place; they want to avoid outbreaks and adhere to provincial guidelines, but feel a better form of visitation needs to happen.

“We are in the process of sending a letter to Dr. Henry on this very subject because we think it is so important to reunite families and start thinking about quality of life for people living in care.”

BC’s health ministry has not stated what changes will come, but adjustments to long term care visitation are expected to be announced by the end of March.