She has taken on “all the responsibilities” but she did not apologize. A few days after the Ontario Long-Term Care Commission submitted to the government a report very embarrassing on long-term care homes, LTC Minister Merillee Fullerton suggested the cause of the tragedy at these facilities was to be found in the slow pace of government bureaucracy. “The government has not been able to keep up with Covid in the long-term care homes – said the Minister during yesterday’s conference – we tried to move quickly but the Covid was faster than us”.
The 322-page long-term care commission report found that the sector was not prepared for a pandemic and the situation was made worse by the province’s slow and reactive response when the virus arrived. There was no plan to protect LTC residents from the pandemic that has killed 3,760 elderly people in the province so far.
The report found that full inspections were conducted in person rarely in the months before the pandemic began and that residents often received Covid-19 test results by mail in the first months of the first wave, making them practically useless.
The number of deaths has dropped only at the end of February, after the province was able to offer vaccination to all staff and residents.
As minister in charge of the sector, Fullerton made no apologies for the many painful mistakes and negligence that led to thousands of deaths in the province’s 626 long-term care houses between March 2020 and February 2021. “I think collectively, as a society, we need to think a little bit and understand why it took a pandemic to address capacity problems and personnel problems in long-term care,” she said when asked if she intended to apologize.
Fullerton said her ministry has doubled from 8,000 to 16,000 the number of personal support workers who will graduate this year and reiterated promises already made in the past to raise the standard of care in all homes, improve rules for infection prevention and inspections. “I fully take responsibility for the well-being of long-term care residents and staff. And I do it together with all the other entities that have worked 24 hours a day to deal with a pandemic against an unknown virus once in a hundred years.
The Minister of LTC answered only three questions from journalists and left despite other reporters wanted to ask her more questions. A spokesman for the premier’s office then justified Fullerton’s behaviour on the grounds that she was in a hurry to walk away because she had to be present at the Question Period as she “knew that the opening questions would be addressed to her.” No explanation on the timing of the conference that began just 25 minutes before the Question Period.
NDP leader Andrea Horwath once again said Fullerton should be removed from the government. “He let people die, rather than talk or act. Fullerton must resign from her post as minister of Long-Term Care today or be fired by Mr. Ford,” Horwath said.
The clash between Fullerton and the opposition leader continued during the Question Period when Horwath said that “staffing levels in most long-term care homes are lower than at the start of the first wave of the pandemic” and criticised the government for promising to “raise the standard of care in these houses to four hours a day only by 2025.” “No one believes that this minister will make those changes, that you will make those changes in Ontario, resign now!”, said a fierce Horwath.
In response, Fullerton called the NDP leader’s remarks “incredibly ignorant,” an observation she had to retract. “If you want to have adequate staff in long-term care, if you want to have the necessary support for residents, you actually need to train staff, and that’s exactly what we’re doing – Fullerton said – you need people who want to work in long-term care and who are prepared to work in long-term care.”
