Long-term care supports older people by helping them meet daily physiological and social needs. The caregiver improves the patient’s quality of life, regardless of the severity of the disease, the symptoms that appear, and the prognosis for the future. Research in this area evaluates the quality, the influence of various external factors, and the implementation of care theories for multiple tasks. This paper proposes to review one of these studies focusing on the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on long-term care systems in Ontario and British Columbia (Liu et al., 2020). Being a structure dependent on other medical institutions, this system should have a comprehensive response to external factors of this magnitude. The article in question assesses the current problems caused by the pandemic and their impact on the entire industry.
Background
The pre-pandemic long-term care systems in British Columbia and Ontario had several strengths that ensured strong coordination with higher levels of public health. Consistently, institutions of this type could, with the help of appropriate authorities, increase funding, the number of hours of care, and, as a result, its quality (Liu et al., 2020). Comfort also increased for long-term care clients with more individual rooms. Finally, the control systems had sufficient resources and personnel to carry out more routine and more comprehensive inspections, increasing the stability and proactivity of actions. Canadian legislation requires the possibility of providing free medical services if necessary, but long-term care does not fall under this rule (Liu et al., 2020). In this regard, the delegation of funding takes place between the administrations of the provinces and directly to the clients.
Funding has been one of the problems in this geographic region since publicly funded medical institutions provide higher pay to employees. In addition, the infrastructure of long-term care systems can suffer accordingly, which naturally leads to poor employee performance and low levels of employee engagement (Liu et al., 2020). In addition, commercial houses, oddly enough, have worse statistics compared to non-commercial ones (Liu et al., 2020). Consequently, with the advent of the pandemic, these problems intensified and differentiated according to the tasks described, complicating the development of this system.
Stakeholders
The stakeholders of this study are the organizations of these regions of Ontario and British Columbia and the clients of these houses. Public health can use these statistics to reorganize the revenues of the medical institutions in the area. Managers and staff of system participants can pay attention to the classification of tasks, the solution of which has become necessary in the aggravated conditions of the pandemic. Long-term care facilities have had to increase their resources to meet new national requirements for personal protective equipment and adequate sanitation (Liu et al., 2020). These changes require additional funding, experts, and hours of care for the elderly. The most affected stakeholders, in this case, are the older adults who are in the system.
Problems
The pandemic caused by the spread of the virus has become a challenge for all public health. Politicians were forced to redistribute income in favor of medical institutions. Since part of the long-term care systems was commercial, their costs naturally increased, affecting the pricing and quality of care. Non-profit organizations were forced to look for sources of funding in the area, where, on the one hand, government subsidies were sent, but on the other hand, most of them were distributed to more critical medicine departments.
Outbreaks of diseases are accompanied by additional measures that require the involvement of appropriate resources. Ontario responded overall more slowly than British Columbia, leading to more illnesses on average (Liu et al., 2020). Given the already less than ideal conditions for the elderly, greater prevalence resulted in worse statistics due to the lack of deterrent mechanisms. The need for social isolation, introduced almost immediately after the pandemic, harms care and is an external influence (Liu et al., 2020). Finally, the wearing of personal protective equipment the distance impacted both the financial side of the issue and the quality.
Recommendations
A rather long infusion of long-term care systems to introduce measures to protect against the spread of the disease has led to inevitable negative consequences, which, as a result, now require not only proactive but also reactive actions to eliminate symptoms. The pandemic has brought to light systems problems that should be addressed, at least with the help of administrations at a higher level. First, commercial and non-commercial homes should receive funding, especially in such emergencies, to preserve essential personnel and the health of customers and employees. The spread of the disease requires additional costs, primarily when the problem acquires a global scale and corresponding responsibility.
At the administrative level, it is vital to provide monetary support and resources in the form of personal protective equipment or expert personnel. In the face of a shortage of these resources, it is necessary to look for ways of decisive and early optimization. Second, each institution needs a risk mitigation plan for extraordinary situations. Such a plan can cut costs, keep customers and employees from spreading illness, and avoid mental health issues, anxiety, and panic. Canadian systems are just one of many examples of these systems at the provincial level, where problems tend to be greater than in more significant regions.
Reference
Liu, M., Maxwell, C. J., Armstrong, P., Schwandt, M., Moser, A., McGregor, M. J.,… & Dhalla, I. A. (2020). COVID-19 in long-term care homes in Ontario and British Columbia. Canadian Medical Association Journal, 192(47), E1540-E1546.