Care home providers were concerned about public health that wasn’t doing enough to protect the elderly

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British Columbia health officials said Friday that data show that older people over the age of 80 are 50 times more likely to die of COVID-19 than any other age group, but health care providers said. Dangers of concern that public health is not doing enough to ensure that current practices control it.

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Health officials acknowledge that the lack of prompt testing means that important visitors have not been tested before entering some care facilities.

Last month, Dr. Bonnie Henry ordered the care facility to test all important visitors before all, but on Friday she said she didn’t have to. ..

“We don’t deny people these important visits because we don’t have access to quick tests,” Henry said. “We screen our symptoms so that we can prioritize those who are new visitors. If we don’t have any test kits, we’ll go back to what we’ve been using all the time. This is a symptom screening., “She explained.

This means that the visitor will be asked a series of questions, such as whether they feel sick before entering the care facility.

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The CEO of the BC Care Providers Association said he upheld Henry’s decision to allow untested visits. But Terry Lake said it is an example of the lack of foresight due to public health that supporters have long warned.

“Our organization and senior supporters have said for over a year that both visitors and staff need these rapid tests,” Lake said. “But that’s a thing of the past. Let’s double the effort to get the tests we need now to solve this problem.”

Health Minister Adrian Dix said the care facility will receive some of the 15 million test kits expected to be received from the federal government from now to mid-February.

Two weeks ago, Dix said 200,000 tests had been deployed to long-term care facilities, but since then it has not announced specific allocations to these facilities.

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On Friday, Dix announced specific allocations to acute care, testing centers, schools and businesses, adding that “long-term care facilities and care facilities will continue to receive additional inventory to replenish their supply.” I did.

SafeCareBC, which represents 28,000 continuous care workers, said there is currently no specific assignment of prompt examinations for assisted living settings.

Group CEO Saleema Dhalla said that care facility workers, as well as visitors, should be tested on a regular basis, but current policy allows only symptomatic workers to be tested.

“At the end of the day, we want our staff to offer us the option of quick testing because it has a very realistic mental health impact for people working in the care center,” Dara said. “They are very afraid to bring this virus back to their families or to work.”

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Senior supporters of BC recommended in a report last fall that there was a regular examination of asymptomatic staff and that all staff and residents were examined during the outbreak.

Isobel Mackenzie pointed out that while there are no quick tests available to seniors living in the community, companies are assigned hundreds of thousands of tests to their staff.

“I don’t understand why this is happening right now in the middle of this wave,” she said.

Proponents want Henry to quickly develop a guidance document that addresses their questions and concerns.

“We need to clarify visitor testing, staff testing, outbreak definitions, how to manage them, and the rationale behind them,” Lake said. “Currently, all of these orders are mostly related to home care, so we know when assisted living, independent living, and home care will be covered.

“The guidance document cannot answer all the questions, but it was difficult to understand what the guiding principles we must follow.”