Our Provincial Government said so very long ago that they would protect our seniors; have they?

BY STEVEN KASZAB

I went for a walk yesterday to get some fresh air and clear my mind.  I walked by a Senior Living Home and then an emergency seniors centre. These days ambulances have been coming and going at a high frequency back and forth from our local hospitals.

I stood before the emergency centre and prayed for the many residents who have gone there, and the many people who are caring for them. Our mothers, sisters, aunts neighbours and friends. I thought about the number of elderly who have passed since this pandemic started over eighteen months ago. I cannot count them on my fingers anymore. Too many have passed.

Parents of my friends, a neighbour who we have known for over thirty years, someone I worked with.

I thought much as I walked. Strangely I was not comforted, nor did I calm down during my walk.

Our seniors living in these privately run homes have become prisoners, unable to be with their loved ones, often ignored by overworked staff. Senior living before the pandemic was difficult enough. They were being charged extremely high monthly charges for the bare minimum. Now, they are being charged the same amount of money and they have been put into a perilous environment where they are threatened by COVID-19, lack of staff, lack of protective tools. They are getting the bare minimum again, but now with added fear and danger.

The attention given to senior living has been ignored since the Liberal government previous to our present-day administration. I have been to many homes in Canada and the USA and believe me when I say privately run senior homes can be horrific places, where abuse, intolerance, ignorance and confinement reign supreme. These homes, small or large, exact much from their residence while giving the minimum. Look how unprepared many administrations of these homes were. Lacking all necessary protective tools, with staff being forced to work many jobs since the pay or hours were not there to make a good living.

The government has allowed these businesses to put as many residences as possible into limited spaces. Our provincial government says they have control over the situation. Their regulators visit these places do they not, inspecting each home for safety and liveability of our seniors. So many of our citizens say if the provincial government had been doing its job, this horrible mess in our seniors’ homes would not have happened right? Our government had to bring the military in to save some of these homes from a medical and social genocide.

That is what it appears to be, genocide, a war of ignorance upon our elderly. These bureaucrats in Queens Park and Ottawa have ignored our seniors. They have manipulated them, politically used them, and financially called upon them, but when the chips were down, way before the pandemic happened, these political/financial bureaucrats have ignored them.

Imagine what the death toll will be in Ontario and Canada once this pandemic is over. Imagine the medical and health effects that will linger among our seniors far into the future. The side effects and prolonged medical illnesses we are only learning about now. Will the provincial government be there for the seniors when these effects occur? They will promise just as they promised our seniors that a healthy and safe retirement was possible. Promises that need to be seen for what they are. Concern shown, but certainly little invested in senior living. After all private senior living is based upon profit, not for the resident by some numbered corporation.

Ontario’s health and senior living portfolios need to belong to the masses, the citizens and the seniors who shaped this land. Presently most seniors live in places owned and shaped by a few businesspeople, managers at best.

That must change. Our political system must change. Concern for all our lives must be accepted as a goal of every government, whether it be in a crisis or a normal situation.

Those who did not act, and those who have acted foolishly will have to answer for their failures. Those who shaped and made Ontario demand it.