Nearly 60% of Ontario’s long-term care homes are in outbreak

COVID-19 continues to spread in Ontario’s long-term care homes with nearly 60 per cent of the province’s facilities declaring an outbreak.

Long-term care advocate Vivian Stamatopoulos says the high number out outbreaks is not surprising. “I think we saw this coming which is probably the most upsetting part, we knew Omicron was a game-changer in terms of the transmissibility,” said Stamatopoulos.

In Hamilton, 24 homes are currently in an outbreak. Unions representing long-term care workers say they’ve seen 20 to 30 per cent of staff off sick or isolated due to Omicron this month alone.

Right now in Ontario, more than 4,000 long-term care staff currently have COVID-19.

The director of geriatrics at Sinai Health, Dr. Samir Sinha says residents within the nursing homes are suffering as a result. “It means people aren’t being bathed in a timely way, the extra time they often need to be fed or supported during meal times just isn’t there, so we get concerned about issues of malnutrition, dehydration,” said Sinha.

Heritage Green Nursing Home is the hardest hit in Hamilton. It currently has 39 staff cases, 55 cases involving residents and one visitor for a total of 95 cases.