Family caregivers have been excluded from their duties during this pandemic due to restrictions and one organization is calling on hospitals, medical facilities, and long-term care facilities to include caregivers in a patient’s healthcare team.
“A family caregiver plays a super important role,” says Dr. Daren Heyland, a Kingston, Ont.-based critical care physician and author of Plan Well Guide for critical illness. “Not necessarily administering medicationSometimes in providing direct hands-on care, but certainly helping them mobilize, eat, maintain their dignity.
ADVERTISEMENT
Long-term care homes have been heavily scrutinized this summer as death rates in some facilities across the country skyrocketed. An investigation by the Canadian military into five Ontario long-term care homes resulted in a scathing report, including repeated incidences where staff used medical equipment without it first being disinfected, staff being aggressive towards patients, and presence of insects such as cockroaches in these homes.
“This pandemic has exposed weaknesses in our health care system resulting in egregious and unconscionable harm to Canadian patients by restricting and often excluding family caregivers from the bedside where they could fully participate in care,” says the full declaration by Caregivers4Change.
Recently, Ontarians with residents of long-term care homes were given the option to list two caregivers who will be permitted to access the home in the event of a COVID outbreak at the facility. Caregivers are expected to play a crucial role in the coming months as many facilities face staff shortages.
ADVERTISEMENT
Patty Hajdu , Canadian Minister of Health, and Deb Schulte , Canadian Minister of Seniors, did not reply to a request for comment on this topic.
“Healthcare system leaders have a duty to provide us with the technology, training, and equipment required for us to exercise our rights,” says Heyland . “When separated by distance and out of necessity, we call upon health care system decision-makers to utilize current technologies and make available the staff necessary to enable us to stay connected to our family member and receive information from their clinical teams in a timely and efficient manner.”
emjones@postmedia.com | @jonesyjourn