{"id":11438,"date":"2020-04-11T19:25:25","date_gmt":"2020-04-11T23:25:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/airpurifierspecialist.com\/store\/?p=11438"},"modified":"2020-05-25T11:37:34","modified_gmt":"2020-05-25T15:37:34","slug":"a-young-boys-home-care-needs-highlight-the-dangers-of-spreading-covid-19","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/airpurifierspecialist.com\/store\/a-young-boys-home-care-needs-highlight-the-dangers-of-spreading-covid-19\/","title":{"rendered":"A young boy\u2019s home-care needs highlight the dangers of spreading COVID-19"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\"Sandro<\/img><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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By <\/span>Sandro Contenta<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/span><\/span>Feature Writer<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Sat., April 11, 2020<\/span><\/span><\/span>timer<\/i>4 min. read<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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The mother of a Mississauga boy wants the provincial government to impose greater safeguards to protect her vulnerable child from contracting COVID-19 <\/a>through the home care he needs to survive.<\/p>\n

She says her fears rose when she learned that two of the four nurses who regularly care for her son were asked to work at Participation House <\/a>in Markham, where 10 disabled residents were infected with the virus.<\/p>\n

The nurses declined, but it drove home the risk of other caregivers entering her home after serving at sites with an outbreak.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat nurse could walk into our house after a shift there and we wouldn\u2019t know,\u201d said the mother, who asked that she not be identified out of fear that it would impact her home care service. She also didn\u2019t want her son\u2019s chronic illness noted, saying it\u2019s so unusual that her family could easily be identified.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not only my son who\u2019s at risk,\u201d she added in a phone interview. \u201cIf I get infected, my child will put a strain on an already strained heath-care system because he now has to go to the hospital to be cared for.\u201d<\/p>\n

She wants the provincial government to acknowledge the importance of home care during the COVID-19 pandemic and implement standards that guarantee a continuous and safe service.<\/p>\n

Her concerns are echoed by home-care providers, who say the provincial government has so far neglected the vital role their sector plays in the fighting the contagion.<\/p>\n

\u201cMore focus has to be put on home care,\u201d said Susan VanderBent, CEO of Home Care Ontario<\/a>, adding she has been pressing this message with the government.<\/p>\n

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\u201cProper recognition is critical,\u201d added VanderBent, whose organization represents 70 service providers. \u201cIt\u2019s basically to say, \u2018What about home care? How will home care cope? How will we manage?\u2019 \u201d<\/p>\n

For example, \u201cWe want to make sure that when PPE supplies arrive, home care is seen as an important part of the system to support,\u201d she said, referring to protection equipment such as face masks, gowns and gloves.<\/p>\n

VanderBent finds the government\u2019s lack of home care focus especially puzzling given that hospitals have been freeing up space for COVID-19 victims by accelerating the discharge of chronically ill patients to be cared for at home.<\/p>\n

In Ontario, home care is regulated by the Local Health Integrated Networks, which determine who is eligible for the service. In 2017, 760,000 people received home care services in the province at a cost of $2.5 billion to the provincial government, according to a report by the Auditor General.<\/p>\n

In a statement to the Star, the Ministry of Health said its officials make regular calls to home-care services providers to discuss how to continue the care safely for front-line staff and patients, a goal it described as a top government priority.<\/p>\n

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\u201cAll partners are actively engaged in implementing new home care delivery models to support home-care clients and patients,\u201d the statement said. It includes increasing the delivery of virtual care by nurses, physiotherapist, social workers and other home caregivers. More home-care services may be brought online \u201cin the weeks ahead.\u201d<\/p>\n

The government has also issued guidelines that has nurses, personal support workers and other home care providers screening themselves for symptoms of the virus every morning. But Shirlee Sharkey, president and CEO of SE Health<\/a>, says the government has to consider new care models that ensure \u201cwe\u2019re not spreading the virus from home to home.\u201d<\/p>\n

Currently, the home-care model sees nurses or personal support workers visit an average of six different homes a day, and could include a nursing home, Sharkey said. That should change to having the same nurse or personal service worker exclusively visit the same client.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf a client needs three personal support worker visits a day, why not have one worker put in five or six hours a day dedicated to that one client?\u201d Sharkey said. <\/p>\n

Sharkey, whose 8,000 employees in Ontario make 20,000 home-care visits each day, said fear of infection is one reason her non-profit agency has seen a drop in home care services by up to 30 per cent.<\/p>\n

\u201cPatients and families were nervous and cancelling visits, at least short term,\u201d said Sharkey, who is a registered nurse. \u201cAnd our staff are nervous, both with the shortage of PPE and nervous with the community spread of COVID-19.\u201d<\/p>\n

This trend needs to be reversed, she argued, because the more people turn away from home care the more likely their illnesses will force them into already strained hospitals.<\/p>\n

One of the problems is the lack of protection equipment. The amount of equipment that once lasted a full year is now being used up in a month, Sharkey said. It keeps her constantly competing to buy the little equipment available, which increasingly is being reserved for staff in hospitals and nursing homes.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t sleep at night worrying about it,\u201d she said. \u201cYou can imagine the anxiety of going week to week wondering, \u2018Are we going to have enough?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

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A model with one care provider working exclusively with one home-based client would significantly reduce the need for masks once it\u2019s clear that neither the caregiver or her client is infected, Sharkey added.<\/p>\n

That model would require a fundamental redesign of the provincial approach, which currently sees home care as a piecemeal service divided into specific tasks that get performed by the hour, Sharkey said. <\/p>\n

\u201cHome care has been an afterthought for years and during this pandemic we in the community are saying, \u2018Listen, this has to part of the whole central planning,\u201d said Sharkey, arguing that the government\u2019s vision of health care has traditionally been focused on hospitals.<\/p>\n

\u201cEveryone is being told to stay at home,\u201d she added. \u201cSo we want to make sure that we can provide an environment in the health care system where people can stay at home.\u201d <\/p>\n

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By Sandro ContentaFeature WriterSat., April 11, 2020timer4 min. readThe mother of a Mississauga boy wants the provincial government to impose greater safeguards to protect her vulnerable child from contracting COVID-19 through the home care he needs to survive.She says her fears rose when she learned that two of the four nurses who regularly care for…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":11439,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[120,162,161,157],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/airpurifierspecialist.com\/store\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11438"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/airpurifierspecialist.com\/store\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/airpurifierspecialist.com\/store\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/airpurifierspecialist.com\/store\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/airpurifierspecialist.com\/store\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11438"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/airpurifierspecialist.com\/store\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11438\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16798,"href":"https:\/\/airpurifierspecialist.com\/store\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11438\/revisions\/16798"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/airpurifierspecialist.com\/store\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11439"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/airpurifierspecialist.com\/store\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11438"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/airpurifierspecialist.com\/store\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11438"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/airpurifierspecialist.com\/store\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11438"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}