Ontario issues stay-at-home order except for essentials

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Horwath calls for Fullerton's resignation in wake of LTC report
Minister refuses to apologize, says she plans to fix the issues

Author of the article:Antonella Artuso
Publishing date:May 03, 2021 • 15 hours ago • 2 minute read • 99 Comments
Merrilee Fullerton, Ontario's minister of long-term care, attends a media availability at the Queen's Park in Toronto on Monday, May 3, 2021.
Merrilee Fullerton, Ontario's minister of long-term care, attends a media availability at the Queen's Park in Toronto on Monday, May 3, 2021. PHOTO BY CHRIS YOUNG /THE CANADIAN PRESS
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Ontario Long-term Care Minister Merrilee Fullerton declined to apologize or resign Monday despite a report that found her government’s slow response to COVID-19 contributed to a devastating loss of life in nursing homes.

“I think collectively as a society we need to do some soul searching and understand why, you know, it took a pandemic to address the capacity issues in long-term care (LTC), the staffing issues in long-term care,” Fullerton said. “Our government, and as a Ministry of Long-term Care, we had started urgently as soon as we became a ministry to address that and the wait lists … These were long-standing issues.”

Fullerton said the time has come to move forward, and she plans to fix these issues in LTC including the government processes that moved more slowly than COVID-19.

“Collectively, we can all make a difference — and people’s lives must not have been lost in vain,” she said.

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Ontario’s Long-term Care COVID-19 Commission report, released Friday night, said the rate of infection and death in Ontario LTC homes were among the worst in the world.

“Of all COVID-19 deaths in Ontario in 2020, 61% were long-term care residents,” the report says. “By the end of April 2021, 11 staff and almost 4,000 residents in Ontario’s long-term care homes had died.”

The report says the province was unprepared for a pandemic and the LTC sector was in a “poor state” going into the crisis, despite awareness among policy makers and advocates.


LTC workers — with insufficient training, staffing and protective equipment — reported crying and vomiting from stress as they watched residents die, the report says.

NDP Leader Andrea Horwath repeatedly called for Fullerton’s resignation as minister.

“The minister doesn’t want to take responsibility for what the commission described as this government’s failure … that there were no excuses for the deaths that occurred in the second wave,” Horwath said.

Fullerton urged LTC operators to offer counselling to residents and staff, as recommended by the report.

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A body is removed from the Eatonville Care Centre long-term facility on The East Mall in Toronto on Tuesday, April 14, 2020.
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Ontario Health Minister Christine Elliott.
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The commission’s recommendation that the people who develop LTC homes be separate from those who provide the care in the homes is an idea worth considering, she said.

“I’ve spoken to operators and developers who are interested in pursuing this type of model,” she said.

The minister said her government is already addressing the staffing issue raised in the commission’s report.

aartuso@postmedia.com
 

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WARMINGTON: These cops don't believe in arresting people for being on the street
15 active officers and four retirees taking the government and their police forces to court

Author of the article:Joe Warmington
Publishing date:May 04, 2021 • 21 hours ago • 3 minute read • 70 Comments
York Region Const. Chris Vandebos and Toronto Polilce Sgt. Julie Evans in front of the Charter of Rights in Toronto on May 3, 2021.
York Regional Police Const. Chris Vandenbos and Toronto Police Sgt. Julie Evans in front of the Charter of Rights in Toronto on May 3, 2021. PHOTO BY JOE WARMINGTON /Toronto Sun
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These are cops policing a pandemic who are just not comfortable ticketing a woman on a sidewalk for expressing her free speech.

These are cops who don’t believe people in any house of worship should be arrested. These are cops deeply offended seeing a video of a 12-year-old boy on a scooter being pushed to the ground at a closed-down skate park.


And these cops have put their careers on the line to protect people’s basic rights.

Meet Sgt. Julie Evans and Sgt. Greg Boltyansky of Toronto Police and York Regional Police Const. Christopher Vandenbos — three officers “loyal to the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms” who are among 15 active police officers and four retirees taking the government and their police forces to court over being forced to participate in “unconstitutional” and “martial law” like lockdowns, stay-at-home orders, social distancing, and enforcement. The initiative stems from Police on Guard For Thee, which has hundreds of active and retired police officers advocating for the rights of Canadians.

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“There are outright violations of people’s rights,” said Evans, a 20-year decorated detective. “It’s criminalizing human behaviour of people who are not criminals.”


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But suddenly people expressing their freedoms at rallies, or wanting to play basketball, are in regular confrontations with police. These cops don’t think these interactions are necessary.

“Going out and living their lives, to me, should not involve police going out and criminalizing that,” said 17-year veteran Vandenbos.

A social media video of a York police officer threatening to ticket a crying woman who has lost her business is hard to watch.


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“It’s not what we signed up for,” said Evans. “Imagine watching daily your colleagues do that and try and put that same uniform on.”

These cops say they want to help people like her. Not fight her.

As a police officer for two decades, Boltyansky served foreign tours in Afghanistan and Ukraine but says it’s the stress now that is worse. “Right now I feel broken,” he said.

Our society is broken. The mental stress levels have never been higher.


It’s heartbreaking because these officers are good people with great careers. I’d rather find a way for them to continue those instead of being out of sorts with equally as exceptional superiors who have their own pressures to bear.

But these officers deserve to be heard. Their point of view is important. They are not unstable or wearing “tin foil” hats, as some suggest. It’s the opposite. They are people setting a high standard who you want wearing that uniform.

“I take great pride in the oath that I took to the Constitution, Charter and the Queen,” said Vandenbos. “In serving as a police officer, forgetting that Constitution and oath to the Charter, basically nullifies what it is I sought to do as a police officer, which is to protect the people and not criminalize human behaviour.”


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Evans and Boltyansky have had it happen to them. Off duty, both were busted in the parking lot of the Church of God in Aylmer last month and after a heated conversation with local police, were handed $880 tickets.

The lawyer for the officers, Rocco Galati, said there will be more to say when it goes to court but I can say there are components to the story so compelling that these officers should never have ever been approached — much the same as Anne Klausner in Richmond Hill, whose fitness sector business is out of business thanks to COVID-19 measures.

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Police at the Church of God in Aylmer.
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“We were just in the parking lot after coming out of a church,” said Evans. “We did nothing wrong.”

Toronto Police say its Professional Standards Unit is investigating. The pandemic has created some bizarre priorities for the system.


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Constitutional expert Galati said it’s an honour to represent these fine officers.

“The one thing they have in common is their integrity … They are standing up because of their commitment to the rule of law and the oath that they took to clarify their duties under these COVID regulations and to clarify what they can and can’t do.”

Added Galati: “They have serious concerns that they are being asked to do completely illegal and unconstitutional things.”

These cops won’t do that.

jwarmington@postmedia.com
 

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WARMINGTON: Tearful protester 'overwhelmed' when cop ordered her off sidewalk
Author of the article:Joe Warmington
Publishing date:May 04, 2021 • 16 hours ago • 2 minute read • 10 Comments
Personal Trainer Anne Klausner
Personal Trainer Anne Klausner PHOTO BY VERONICA HENRI, TORONTO SUN /Toronto Sun
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If freedom is worth fighting for, losing freedom is worth crying over.

Anne Klausner didn’t go to Sunday’s lockdown protests at Rutherford Rd. and Bathurst St. in Richmond Hill looking to break the law — or break out the Kleenex.


But it turns out the police determined she was, and she ended up needing some tissues, too.

“It’s just all hit me at once,” said the Thornhill woman, a certified personal trainer who operated her own Exercise With Care business for years. “It was when the police officer said I couldn’t protest on the sidewalk that I became overwhelmed.”

It was all caught on video and shared on social media.

At first glance, it seems the York Regional Police officer is relentless in his efforts to threaten this woman with an $880 ticket if she did not go home and leave the area immediately.

But Klausner said it may have looked worse than it really was.

“I have no problem with York police and understand that the officer was just doing his job, “said Klausner. “In the end, he didn’t give me a ticket.”

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But what the officer may or may not have realized is the reason for these tears.

“Because of the lockdowns, I have lost my business, “ said Klausner. “I couldn’t afford to pay the ticket if they had given it to me.”

However, it wasn’t her income that was front in her mind. It was her clients.

“Some of them really need me right now because they’re in a position where they can’t get out of bed,” she said, adding sessions over Skype only work so well.

She said her regulars — some recovering from strokes or training for a race — count on her.

“Exercise is so important to keeping people healthy,” she said. “The immune system doesn’t just work. It has to be tended to with exercise and good diet.”

Locking people down for a year, she said, is not going to chase away the coronavirus. It’s going to create bodies that won’t be able to fight it off, Klausner insisted.


“That’s why I am protesting and why I will be at the same corner at 3 p.m. Sunday,” she added.

Klausner said she knows she may end up getting fined next time but is prepared to take the risk for struggling patients she hopes to help in person again someday.

“We have got to find a way to in these lockdowns or more people are going to become less healthy.”

And that, said Klausner, is something worth shedding tears over.
 

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Mandatory mask laws should include TTC, union prez says after driver assaulted
Bus driver was attacked after she asked passengers to mask up

Author of the article:Bryan Passifiume
Publishing date:May 04, 2021 • 16 hours ago • 1 minute read • Join the conversation
Buses wait to go into service at the Comstock TTC yards on March 23, 2020.
Buses wait to go into service at the Comstock TTC yards on March 23, 2020. PHOTO BY JACK BOLAND /Toronto Sun
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In the wake of a disturbing assault on a TTC operator in East York by riders who refused to wear face masks, the president of Toronto’s transit union is calling for action.

“We want to see a legal requirement for our customers to wear masks,” said Carlos Santos, president of Amalgamated Transit Union Local 113.


“You can’t go into any stores, or anywhere, without a mask — we don’t understand why it’s allowed to happen on the TTC.”

On Sunday evening, a TTC operator was attacked by passengers who rebuffed her requests to mask up while on her bus near Broadview and Torrens Aves.

Police attended and made two arrests.

Desta Yematawork Haile, 26, and 25-year-old Kaitlyn Richter, both of Toronto, face two counts each of assault. Haile also faces a charge of mischief and failure to comply, and Richter is also charged with theft. Both appeared in court on Monday.


After the incident, Santos alleges supervisors refused to give the driver a ride back to the garage, and instead she had to wait 15 minutes for a bus.

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TTC spokesperson Stuart Green told the Sun the operator was transported to hospital by paramedics, and that an out-of-service bus was dispatched to bring the victim to her division as pandemic rules don’t allow for carpooling.

While TTC rules require mask-wearing by riders, it isn’t a law, Santos said. He said the TTC seems more interested in catching employees slipping in their adherence to the rules.

“What they do is write up operators if they put their mask down to catch a breather,” Santos said.

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A masked TTC streetcar rider along Dundas St. W., near Landsdowne Ave. in Toronto, Ont. on Wednesday April 29, 2020.
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“They seem to be more focused on catching an operator putting their mask down than customers. I guess they don’t want to discourage customers from taking transit.”

Green told the Sun riders are required to wear masks while on property, as per TTC bylaw.

bpassifiume@postmedia.com
On Twitter: @bryanpassifiume
 

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Man nabbed with suspected fake COVID document at Pearson airport
Author of the article:Chris Doucette
Publishing date:May 05, 2021 • 43 minutes ago • 1 minute read • Join the conversation
The arrivals lineup in Terminal One at Pearson International Airport February 22, 2021.
The arrivals lineup in Terminal One at Pearson International Airport on Feb. 22, 2021. PHOTO BY JACK BOLAND /Toronto Sun/Postmedia Network
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A 33-year-old man is accused of trying to enter Canada with a fraudulent COVID-19 document after arriving at Pearson International Airport from an international destination.

Peel Regional Police say they were contacted by a Public Health Agency of Canada quarantine officer regarding an allegedly fake COVID-19 test document around 2:30 a.m. on Saturday.


As a result, a Toronto man was charged with uttering a forged document, police said in a statement released Wednesday.

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International arrivals at Toronto's Pearson airport.
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Health workers at the arrivals COVID-19 testing area at Terminal 1 at Toronto Pearson International Airport on January 26, 2021.
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The accused is expected to appear at the Ontario Court of Justice in Brampton on a future date.

“He was released from police custody and remained with representatives from the Public Health Agency of Canada for further processing,” police said.

cdoucette@postmedia.com
On Twitter: @SunDoucette
 

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'IT'S DIRE': Second team of N.L. health-care workers en route to Ontario
Author of the article:Canadian Press
Canadian Press
Publishing date:May 04, 2021 • 21 hours ago • 2 minute read • Join the conversation
Physician Dr. Allison Furey, third right, the wife of Newfoundland and Labrador Premier Andrew Furey, along with Military personal and civilian doctors and nurses arrive in a military Lockheed Martin C-130J Super Hercules turboprop military transport aircraft at Pearson International Airport on Tuesday, April 27, 2021.
Physician Dr. Allison Furey, third right, the wife of Newfoundland and Labrador Premier Andrew Furey, along with military personnel and civilian doctors and nurses, arrive in a military Lockheed Martin C-130J Super Hercules turboprop military transport aircraft at Pearson International Airport on April 27, 2021. PHOTO BY NATHAN DENETTE /THE CANADIAN PRESS
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ST. JOHN’S, N.L. — A team of Newfoundland and Labrador health-care workers took off for Ontario Tuesday morning, hoping to help their central Canadian colleagues battle a deadly third wave of COVID-19 that has pushed the province’s health-care system beyond its limits.

A massive Hercules military aircraft sat outside a St. John’s hangar, waiting with its rear door wide open for the three doctors and two nurses to board. Dr. Arthur Rideout was one of them and he told reporters he was nervous about the job ahead.


“It’s dire,” Rideout said of conditions in Ontario. “Their numbers and volume is much more, their capacity is being stretched.”

Ontario health authorities reported 2,791 new cases of COVID-19 Tuesday and 25 new deaths from the disease. In late April, daily case numbers regularly soared beyond 4,000 and health officials began transferring patients out of hospital beds and into long-term care beds in order to make space for COVID-19 cases. By contrast, Newfoundland and Labrador reported four new cases Tuesday, with 56 active infections across the province.

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Rideout and his colleagues were scheduled to touch down in Deer Lake and in Stephenville, on the western side of the island of Newfoundland, to pick up two more nurses before carrying on to Ontario. The team will be working in Brampton for the next few weeks.

Last week, nine other health-care workers from the province flew to Ontario to pitch in, including Dr. Allison Furey, the wife of Newfoundland and Labrador Premier Andrew Furey.

Furey said her reports from Canada’s most populous province were also grim. “She’s working very hard, long days,” Furey said, adding that health-care professionals in the province are “stressed” and “working to the maximum.”

Registered nurse Michelle Murphy said she, too, was nervous to go. “I had a lot of emotions and sometimes a bit of panic — Can I do this? What am I facing? How’s it going to be? — but I think I have the personality for it, and I think I’ll be fine,” she said.


The premier, a surgeon, is a founder of Team Broken Earth, a volunteer group of medical professionals providing aid across the world, and both Murphy and Rideout have been on missions with Furey in the past.

“I never dreamed I’d have the opportunity to give back here in my own country,” Murphy said. “If I can go there and I can give a nurse an extra five minutes on her coffee break or I can hold a hand of somebody or I can wipe the tear of somebody, then I’m helping.”

Furey has faced criticism for sending help to Ontario when parts of his own province face shortages. A report last month from a provincial task force found roughly half the people in Labrador, and on the tip of the Great Northern Peninsula, don’t have a regular health-care provider. He insisted on Tuesday that the two issues are not equivalent and said his government is working toward long-term solutions for regions like Labrador.

Murphy, too, disagreed with the criticisms. “We’re in the middle of a pandemic,” she said. “Ontario is facing some really tough times and the story coming out of Ontario is: they’re exhausted …. There’s no comparison between here and Ontario right now.”
 

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LEVY: Shame on long-term care minister for not showing remorse
Author of the article:Sue-Ann Levy
Publishing date:May 04, 2021 • 15 hours ago • 3 minute read • 40 Comments
Merrilee Fullerton, Ontario's minister of long-term care, attends a media availability at the Queen's Park in Toronto on Monday, May 3, 2021.
Merrilee Fullerton, Ontario's minister of long-term care, attends a media availability at the Queen's Park in Toronto on Monday, May 3, 2021. PHOTO BY CHRIS YOUNG /THE CANADIAN PRESS
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If I were Long-Term Care Minister Merilee Fullerton responding for the first time to a scathing 332-page report pinpointing the many screw-ups that occurred under my watch — mistakes that certainly contributed to the deaths of 4,000 Ontario seniors — the first thing I would have said is “I’m truly sorry.”

Considering Fullerton also purported to have come to politics to fix the mess in long-term care (LTC), I would have told the public “I’m heartbroken.”


I would have even sounded like I meant it.

I certainly wouldn’t have run out the door, as she did, after coldly advising everyone it’s “time to move forward” — leaving a plethora of unanswered questions.

LTC advocate Vivian Stamatopoulos, an associate professor at Ontario Tech University, called Monday’s news conference a “disgrace.”

“(It was) a stunningly ignorant display of disrespect to these families who have yet to receive an apology for the immeasurable trauma they incurred over the past year of failed leadership,” she said Tuesday.

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Just what does it cost to take responsibility for the suffering, the repeated lockdowns of vulnerable seniors without social activities or visitors, the lack of accountability and abuse of power by many of the homes under her watch, the negligence, and, of course, the deaths?

Fullerton and Premier Doug Ford already took care of the liability issue when they rammed through Bill 218.

That piece of legislation — which will require families of lost loved ones to prove gross negligence instead of simple negligence in any lawsuits against LTC and retirement homes — was passed during the third week of November when the second wave was killing LTC residents by the dozens.

There’s no doubt the Ford government inherited a system that had been starved by successive governments. New infrastructure was not built, staffing was already in crisis and the stockpiling of PPE had been abandoned post-SARs to fund other priorities. The LTC commission’s report made that clear.

But the buck stopped with Fullerton and Ford, who has been conspicuously quiet since the report was issued (perhaps deliberately) late Friday evening.

Can you imagine Fullerton, a doctor, standing before a hospital medical review panel telling them that “collectively as a society” we all have to do some soul-searching for the 4,000 deaths that occurred under her watch?

They’d bounce her out of the hospital with a copy of the Hippocratic Oath in hand.

But let’s cut her some slack for a moment, considering she claimed in her testimony to the LTC commission in late February that the complex system and the newness of the LTC ministry contributed to the crisis.

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It is also true that the LTC commission criticized the chief medical officer of health for not acting quickly enough on asymptomatic spread, universal masking, and not giving advice about proper cohorting to homes experiencing an outbreak.

Having said that, I wouldn’t be saying that LTC homes have “dramatically improved,” as she did, just because all residents have been vaccinated. Most residents are coming out of a year of isolation and debilitating confinement.

Considering that inspections of LTC homes are virtually non-existent and that Bill 218 makes it nearly impossible for families of residents to hold to account administrators and corporations who run these homes, I would have made it abundantly clear that inspections will be one of my first priorities.

It’s not just inspections themselves but monitoring and compliance — with funding withdrawn or licenses yanked if issues aren’t corrected within a tight timeframe of say 30 days.

I would also make it clear that homes — who’ve been paid for beds not filled in the past year — are all responsible to hire more staff and to start allowing essential caregivers in on a regular basis without any (often manufactured) issues.

Homes that don’t abide by these rules should also be ordered to comply or risk losing their licenses.

MORE ON THIS TOPIC

Merrilee Fullerton, Ontario's minister of long-term care, attends a media availability at the Queen's Park in Toronto on Monday, May 3, 2021.
Horwath calls for Fullerton's resignation in wake of LTC report
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LEVY: Ontario LTC homes still a disaster

But what do I know?

I only lost my dad to COVID, which raged through his dementia facility. I have spent the last year speaking to families who had heartbreaking tales about being shut out of homes as they watched their loved ones decline.

I’ve seen the broken system up close.

SLevy@postmedia.com
 

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Alzheimer's patients shunted aside in LTC musical chairs
Author of the article:Sue-Ann Levy
Publishing date:May 04, 2021 • 15 hours ago • 2 minute read • Join the conversation
Comforting an Alzheimer's patient.
Comforting an Alzheimer's patient. Getty Images
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A recent provincial health ministry edict that has ordered hospitals to transfer patients to long-term care beds to free up space for COVID patients has left Alzheimer’s and dementia patients in crisis out in the cold, says the executive director of the Alzheimer Society of Ontario.

Cathy Barrick said those living with dementia in the community have been in a “holding pattern” for the past 13 months during the pandemic and those in crisis simply can’t get a placement in LTC, she said this week.

She said after a complete shutdown of LTC homes, some started up slowly and many have been sitting with “empty beds” while the vaccine rollout occurred.

She said some homes were just getting ready to admit residents when the MOH order came down and there is “no wiggle room” in the order for those in the community requiring help.

“COVID for sure has messed up everything,” Barrick said, adding that long-term care homes are permitted to refuse clients who wander, are aggressive or have other issues.

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She said some of their clients have been told explicitly by a care coordinator from a Local Health Integration Network (LIHN), which oversee health care in designated areas, that they should call 911 and have their loved one admitted to hospital if they hope to get an LTC bed.

She cited the case of Joe (not his real name) who has been ravaged by young-onset Alzheimer’s disease and has been on the crisis list (for an LTC bed) since January.


His wife, Deanna (not her real name) — who is the sole care partner for him–is now completely “exhausted, isolated and struggling with burnout,” said Barrick.

She added Deanna is getting some community support during the day from personal support workers but she “can’t sleep” because Joe is up all night.

Rob McMahon, a spokesperson for the LTC ministry, said they understand that Ontarians with “complex health care needs” continue to wait for LTC home spaces.

He said in response to COVID-19, the province “modified and streamlined requirements for long-term care admissions, re-admissions and discharge” to make the challenges as simple as possible for families.

MORE ON THIS TOPIC

Members of the Canadian Armed Forces were called in to help at Pickering's Orchard Villa long-term care home on May 6, 2020.
LEVY: Ontario LTC homes still a disaster
Merrilee Fullerton, Ontario's minister of long-term care, attends a media availability at the Queen's Park in Toronto on Monday, May 3, 2021.
Horwath calls for Fullerton's resignation in wake of LTC report

“New admissions from the community or from a hospital (including alternate level-of-care or ALC patients) to a long-term care home or retirement home can occur if the receiving home is not in a COVID-19 outbreak,” he said.

He added that those waiting for placement can access personal support and nursing services through a LIHN.

SLevy@postmedia.com
 

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Ontario court ruling on vaccine-rollout discrimination suit expected today
The constitutional challenge alleges vulnerable people were left out of the province's COVID-19 vaccination program

Author of the article:Canadian Press
Canadian Press
Publishing date:May 05, 2021 • 4 hours ago • < 1 minute read • Join the conversation
Vaccine doses await arms at the Humber River Hospital Vaccination Clinic held at Downsview Arena on Wednesday April 21, 2021.
Vaccine doses await arms at the Humber River Hospital Vaccination Clinic held at Downsview Arena on Wednesday April 21, 2021. PHOTO BY JACK BOLAND /Toronto Sun
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TORONTO — An Ontario court is expected to rule today on if the province’s COVID-19 vaccination rollout was discriminatory.

The constitutional challenge turns on whether vulnerable people have had fair access to the vaccine.

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Those would include some people with disabilities, homebound seniors, residents of hot-spot neighbourhoods and the homeless.

David Daneshvar, of Toronto, launched the challenge in March.

His application wants the government to ensure public health units make equity central, and to give them necessary resources.
 

taxme

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The Ford administration has been too reactionary with covid. They've had a year to figure this out and they keep stumbling.

It's time for a change.
Ford knows what he is doing. Ford is not being a reactionary at all. Ford is doing the dirty work for the globalist elite. Ford is not what one would call a real and true conservative. Ford is a lefty lieberal in conservative clothing just like the rest of those so called conservatives in the Ontario leftist lieberal conservative party.

The Ford lieberal conservative party had a year to get Ontario back to the good old normal but the dictator is refusing to do so. He loves his new found medical tyranny power that he is forcing on the Ontario people. Ford's dictatorship will not come to an end until the people of Ontario say that they have had enough already of his bull shit and fire the welfare recipient bum. While Ford still collects a paycheck, many people of Ontario do not. When will all Canadians start to wake up and start to realize that their politicians are not their friend. They pretty much all appear to be our best enemy. Hello, are you getting it yet? :cool:
 
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Need to get past 'blame game' for LTC crisis: Minister
Author of the article:Antonella Artuso
Publishing date:May 05, 2021 • 4 hours ago • 2 minute read • 30 Comments
Minister of Long-term Care Merrilee Fullerton in Ottawa for an announcement Oct. 30, 2020.
Minister of Long-term Care Merrilee Fullerton in Ottawa for an announcement Oct. 30, 2020. PHOTO BY JULIE OLIVER /POSTMEDIA
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Ontario Long-term Care Minister Merrilee Fullerton softened her tone Wednesday after two days of blaming the official NDP opposition for long-standing problems in nursing homes.

“We look at blaming that could go on — at some point it’s not productive,” Fullerton said, when asked about her criticism of the NDP. “It’s one thing to understand what could have contributed over time to finding ourselves in the situation that we’re in with COVID, but we need to be productive.”


A report by the Long-term Care Commission, released late Friday, pointed to the Doug Ford government’s slow response as a factor in the high death toll among nursing home residents during the second wave of the pandemic,

Opposition MPPs have called on Fullerton to apologize and resign her cabinet position.

The minister raised eyebrows in the Ontario legislature this week when she targeted NDP Leader Andrea Horwath despite her party being out of power since 1995, arguing she could have done more as an opposition leader to force previous governments to improve the standards at nursing homes.

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Fullerton pivoted Wednesday to a more conciliatory tone.

“I think the public wants us to work together to create the change that’s needed in long-term care,” Fullerton said. “When I reflect back on that … there’s enough blame to go around … I recognize the importance of getting past that blame game, that singling out someone for this, it really is a tragedy for the whole country and the world.”

Horwath said she was disappointed that Ford opted to defend Fullerton in the legislature Wednesday, and continued “pointing fingers and blaming others” for the crisis.


Ford and Fullerton have no intention of fixing the LTC system, like confirming ongoing pay hikes for personal support workers (PSWs), she said.

“And that’s why family members are so frustrated and angry with the government,” Horwath said. “Because not only are they not taking responsibility for what happened, what the commission clearly shows was the fault of this government in its response to COVID-19 in long-term care, but they are also watching as this premier and this minister refuse to make commitments to undertake the very changes that everybody has known for years needs to happen.”

aartuso@postmedia.com
 

spaminator

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Researchers suggest link between gum disease and COVID deaths
Author of the article:Kevin Connor
Publishing date:May 05, 2021 • 4 hours ago • 1 minute read • Join the conversation
A woman gets her teeth checked.
A woman gets her teeth checked. PHOTO BY SPACELINER /Getty Images/iStockphoto
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New research suggests that poor oral hygiene can lead to COVID-19 complications.

McGill University researchers have found that people with periodontitis were 8.8 times more likely to die of COVID-19 than those without gum disease.


Researchers say there are links between inflamed gums and infections and COVID-19 complications.

“Looking at the conclusions of our study, we can highlight the importance of good oral health in the prevention and management of COVID-19 complications,” Professor Belinda Nicolau, of McGill’s Faculty of Dentistry, told McGill Newsroom. “There is a very strong correlation between periodontitis and disease outcome.”

Also, people with periodontitis are 3.5 times more likely to require hospitalization for COVID-19 and 4.5 times more likely to require a ventilator than those without gum disease.

“One of the more perplexing things about COVID-19 is its wide range of outcomes in people who get the disease,” the research said.

Periodontitis is a serious infection caused by the accumulation of bacteria between the teeth and gums.

Scientists have also found links between the condition and heart disease, diabetes, and respiratory disease, co-author and McGill Ph.D. student Wenji Cai said in an interview with Medical News Today.

Half of all COVID-19 patients have experienced some oral symptoms, including the loss of taste, dry mouth, and lesions.
 

petros

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Nov 21, 2008
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Low Earth Orbit
Researchers suggest link between gum disease and COVID deaths
Author of the article:Kevin Connor
Publishing date:May 05, 2021 • 4 hours ago • 1 minute read • Join the conversation
A woman gets her teeth checked.
A woman gets her teeth checked. PHOTO BY SPACELINER /Getty Images/iStockphoto
Article content
New research suggests that poor oral hygiene can lead to COVID-19 complications.

McGill University researchers have found that people with periodontitis were 8.8 times more likely to die of COVID-19 than those without gum disease.


Researchers say there are links between inflamed gums and infections and COVID-19 complications.

“Looking at the conclusions of our study, we can highlight the importance of good oral health in the prevention and management of COVID-19 complications,” Professor Belinda Nicolau, of McGill’s Faculty of Dentistry, told McGill Newsroom. “There is a very strong correlation between periodontitis and disease outcome.”

Also, people with periodontitis are 3.5 times more likely to require hospitalization for COVID-19 and 4.5 times more likely to require a ventilator than those without gum disease.

“One of the more perplexing things about COVID-19 is its wide range of outcomes in people who get the disease,” the research said.

Periodontitis is a serious infection caused by the accumulation of bacteria between the teeth and gums.

Scientists have also found links between the condition and heart disease, diabetes, and respiratory disease, co-author and McGill Ph.D. student Wenji Cai said in an interview with Medical News Today.

Half of all COVID-19 patients have experienced some oral symptoms, including the loss of taste, dry mouth, and lesions.
Could the cavity creeps.
 
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Danbones

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New Study Reveals That Stay-at-Home Orders Backfired. Here's Why​

US households had the highest COVID-19 transmission rates, a new economic analysis says. Here's why.

Last summer, NBC News reported that New York state health officials were stunned by the number of hospitalized patients who said they had contracted COVID-19 while staying at home.

The data, collected from 113 hospitals who surveyed patients over a three-day span, suggested more than two-thirds had contracted the virus while staying at home.

"Sixty-six percent of the people were at home, which is shocking to us," Governor Andrew Cuomo told a gaggle of reporters at the Feinstein Institutes for Medical Research in May. The percentage far outnumbered other more likely places, such as nursing homes (18 percent), assisted living facilities (4 percent), and homeless shelters/streets (2 percent).

FFS! As if they didn't know this from basic common sense. Oh wait...vitamin D is now one step away from being ILLEGAL!

Why I’m Removing All Articles Related to Vitamins D, C, Zinc and COVID-19​

 
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Danbones

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World’s Most-Vaccinated Nation Activates Curbs as Cases Rise

Read more at: https://www.bloombergquint.com/poli...ated-nation-reintroduces-curbs-as-cases-surge
Copyright © BloombergQuint

Seychelles, which has fully vaccinated more of its population against the coronavirus than any other country, has closed schools and canceled sporting activities for two weeks as infections surge.

Read more at: https://www.bloombergquint.com/poli...ated-nation-reintroduces-curbs-as-cases-surge
Copyright © BloombergQuint


Read more at: https://www.bloombergquint.com/poli...ated-nation-reintroduces-curbs-as-cases-surge
Copyright © BloombergQuint

don't look sleepy you'll PEE your panties again
;)
lol typhoid marionette

Heh, betcha you failed at DR gates common core math too, HaHa. Say, are ya still using a free antivirus because gates knows FK all about virus ?
:)
tell the truth!
 
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Danbones

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lol, bull shit, that is YOU!!!!



JUSTIN TRUDEAU - ASTRAZENECA​


how many have to die cause YOU are the one who hasn't got a clue buddy? LOTS I guess, on account of it looks like you are kinda slow.

BTW tardy:

The Term “Conspiracy Theory” — an Invention of the CIA​


there is a 1967 CIA memo that puts forward a great many of the commonly heard rebuttals to the Warren Commission Report. The CIA owned over 250 media outlets in the 1960s, spent close to a billion dollars (in today’s dollars) spreading information, and had people doing its bidding in every major city in the world, so it is not surprising that they were able to disseminate this idea.

so you are one of those tards that believes that bullets do magic u-turns in mid air
;)
HAHAHAHAHAHJAHAHA
 
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Danbones

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Mercola

CONSPIRACY-PSEUDOSCIENCE Sources in the Conspiracy-Pseudoscience category may publish unverifiable information that is not always supported by evidence. These sources may be untrustworthy for credible/verifiable information, therefore…

The Columbia Journalism Review describes Media Bias/Fact Check as an amateur attempt at categorizing media bias and Van Zandt as an "armchair media analyst."[2] The Poynter Institute notes, "Media Bias/Fact Check is a widely cited source for news stories and even studies about misinformation, despite the fact that its method is in no way scientific."[3]

try again cliffy!
 
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