2020 News

Covid-19 Stalked Nursing Homes Around the World

By: Anna Wilde Matthews

“We left the barn door open,” said Dr. Samir Sinha, director of health policy research and co-chair at the National Institute on Ageing, a think tank at Toronto’s Ryerson University which attributes more than 70% of Canada’s approximately 14,000 known Covid-19 deaths to long-term care homes. “It was a tragedy,” he added.

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Institute calls for visitor restrictions at long-term care homes to be relaxed

Dr. Samir Sinha with the National Institute on Ageing discusses the consequences of visitor restrictions on long-term care residents.

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Flu almost non-existent this year as coronavirus cases rise across Canada

Dr. Sinha says the lack of flu has eased pressures on hospital staff that are already stretched thin by the pandemic. “Our hospitals are absolutely [at] capacity in Ontario, and we’re not coping well already with the current second wave,” he said. “Just imagine if you then put our usual hospitalization volumes related to pneumonia and the flu on top of that. Our system would’ve collapsed weeks ago.”

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Visit restrictions and depression in long term care homes

The rules about who can visit care home residents seem to vary widely depending on the home in question. Some care homes only allow visitors who are deemed “essential” while others take a broader view of who may be allowed on the premises.

GUEST: Dr. Samir Sinha, director of health policy research at the NIA

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COVID deaths in Scarborough LTC-home climb, new COVID variant in Ontario, virtual restaurants & getting your finances in order for 2021

Dr. Samir Sinha, Director of Health Policy Research at the NIA

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Visit restrictions amid COVID-19 caused ‘spike in depression’ in long-term care homes

By Camille Bains

The National Institute on Ageing said families in British Columbia are enduring the most restrictive visitation policies compared with long-term care homes anywhere else in the country. The institute has issued guidelines to support the reopening of care homes to family caregivers and visitors, even during outbreaks.

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Long-Term Care Is 'Dangerous.' What’s Ontario’s Plan For Alternatives?

By: Sherina Harris

Canada’s system currently focuses on “warehousing older people” in long-term care homes, Dr. Samir Sinha told HuffPost. That comes at a cost, added Sinha, who is the director of geriatrics at Sinai Health and the health policy research director at the National Institute on Ageing (NIA) at Ryerson University.

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Shalom Village outbreak ‘a disaster,’ says Toronto doctor

By: Maria Iqbal

Nathan Stall, Associate Fellow at the NIA, says he raised alarms at the beginning of the outbreak to Larry Levin, the Hamilton long-term-care home’s interim CEO, that if the home didn’t improve staffing levels early, there would be “a lot of death.” “One in three to one in every five residents who get infected will go on to die,” said Stall, a member of the modelling team for Ontario’s COVID-19 Science Advisory Table who has focused on long-term-care homes during the pandemic. “The number of dead residents at the end of this is going to be absolutely catastrophic.”

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Urgent plea for doctors goes out at Toronto-area nursing home hit by COVID-19

By: Karen Howlett

As the number of COVID-19 cases continues to surge, said Nathan Stall, Associate Fellow at the NIA, a breaking point is coming when hospitals won’t have enough staff to support long-term care homes or take acute-care patients from other sites. Dr. Stall himself frequently gets patients from Scarborough and as far away as Brampton. “This is just reflective of the fact that the system is in crisis,” he said. “We keep borrowing resources from areas that aren’t as hard-hit.”

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Residents lacking sufficient medication, water at nursing home battling severe COVID-19 outbreak, doctors warn

By: Julia Knope

Dr. Nathan Stall, Associate Fellow at the National Institute on Ageing, said he's unfortunately "not surprised" by the alarming situation that has formed at Tendercare, adding that it's not an isolated incident. "These were things that we saw in the first wave, where you had total decimation of the medical model of care within many of these homes and frankly total decimation of the nursing and personal support care that goes on," he told CBC Toronto on Wednesday.

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LTC home with 145 COVID-19 resident cases puts out mayday call as it runs out of staff

By: Karen Howlett

Nathan Stall, Associate Fellow at the National Institute on Ageing said he is getting acute-care patients all the time from Scarborough and as far away as Brampton. “This is just reflective of the fact that the system is in crisis,” Dr. Stall said. “We keep borrowing resources from areas that aren’t as hard hit.”

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Health-care workers lining up for COVID-19 vaccine, but some warn of 'real troubles' with hesitancy

By: Lauren Pelley

"We have assumed that if we get a vaccine distributed, that people are going to take it, and I think that's foolhardy based on previous vaccination rates in our province," said Dr. Nathan Stall, Associate Fellow at the National Institute on Ageing.

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Delayed lockdown could result in 10,000 additional COVID-19 cases in Ontario

By: Kenyon Wallace

“We know the majority of those Ontarians who are going to end up dying are going to be older adults,” said Dr. Samir Sinha, director of health policy research at the National Institute on Ageing. “Right now, we don’t actually have a hospital system, especially in places like Toronto, that have any spare capacity. We’ve already been delaying or cancelling elective procedures and surgeries.”

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Alarm raised over outside care workers and coronavirus surge in retirement homes

By: Karen Howlett

“All this foot traffic is a recipe for disaster,” said Samir Sinha, the director of health policy research at the National Institute on Ageing in Toronto and a co-author of a new study examining the risk factors for COVID-19 outbreaks in Ontario retirement homes, including the prevalence of third-party caregivers.

Ontario doctor calls Boxing Day lockdown 'half measures.'

The whole province is being plunged into lockdown come Boxing Day, but is it too late? Dr. Samir Sinha, director of health policy research at the National Institute on Ageing, reflects on the impact the new restrictions could have.

Staffing issues, neglect found in past inspections at Windsor LTC home in COVID-19 outbreak

The home has also not had a Resident Quality Inspection (RQI) since 2018, which Director of Health Policy Research at the National Institute on Ageing Dr. Samir Sinha says were essential, until the government decided to switch to a complaints-based inspection system in the last few years. It's not the only one to have lost this. Sinha said that in 2019 only 27 of Ontario's 626 long-term care homes got an RQI, with that number dropping to 11 this year, as of Oct. 15.

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Dr. Samir Sinha on "My COVID-19 Visit Risk"

Are you still debating your holiday plans even though most of the authorities are recommending that we celebrate with our own households only? There’s an online questionnaire to assess your risk depending on your answers to a whole raft of questions. Leading gerontologist, Dr. Samir Sinha, designed the tool called “My Covid Visit Risk” for Ryerson University’s National Institute on Ageing.

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Will we ever learn? After a catastrophic first wave, COVID-19 is pummelling long-term care homes again

By: Sharon Kirkey

The “flattening?” It’s gone, geriatrician Dr. Nathan Stall recently tweeted. Despite what he describes as vaccine euphoria, despite promises to prioritize long-term care residents, care is still being compromised. There often aren’t enough eyes to identify who is sick and who is not, and “there is still a lot of winter ahead,” he said.

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Hard lockdowns, expanded testing, help for small business: What we need to do now to address COVID-19 crisis

By: Moira Welsh

Dr. Nathan Stall, geriatrics and internal medicine, Mount Sinai

I sound like a broken record, but the greatest risk factor for long-term-care home outbreaks is community transmission.

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Rapid testing at seniors facilities began Friday in Alberta

Alberta has expanded its rapid COVID-19 testing pilot project. Symptomatic staff and residents at seniors facilities could get test results in as little as 20 minutes — but there are critiques of the plan over who isn’t being tested featuring an interview with Dr. Samir Sinha, Director of Health Policy Research at the NIA.

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Taking CPP at 60 costs more than $100,000 in retirement income

Canadians who collect their CPP or QPP benefits at age 60 are making a costly long-term decision, according to a new report by the National Institute on Ageing at Ryerson University and the FP Canada Research Foundation.

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Health officials warn of holiday spike in cases as more vaccine doses set to arrive

“We are getting very worried as our numbers keep climbing each day as we march towards Christmas,” Samir Sinha, director of health policy research at the National Institute on Ageing in Toronto, said on Tuesday. “We expect an additional massive spike within the two weeks after that.”

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Think 2020 was a wild ride? From a vaccine to a change in U.S. leadership, the year ahead in 2021 — and reasons to be hopeful

Ontario’s Long-Term Care COVID-19 Commission should have submitted a final report on the response to the disease and staggering number of deaths among vulnerable members of society. By this time, said Toronto geriatrician Dr. Nathan Stall, there’s hope that a lot of LTC residents might be vaccinated.

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Canadians taking CPP at 60 losing $100,000+ in retirement income: study

The average Canadian taking Canada/Quebec Pension Plan benefits at age 60 instead of waiting until 70 can expect to lose more than $100,000 of secure lifetime income, according to a new research paper by Ryerson University’s National Institute on Ageing and the FP Canada Research Foundation.

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COVID-19 responses across Canada have failed to protect those in long-term care homes

Dr. Samir Sinha, Director of Health Policy Research at the National Institute on Ageing, joined Arlene Bynon to talk about how the COVID-19 responses across Canada have failed to protect those in long term care homes and if the pandemic has revealed the ageism in our society.

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Provinces on a collision course with Ottawa over national standards for long-term care

By: Jacques Gallant

There may be provincial opposition, but the federal government is in a good position as it likely has a huge chunk of the public on its side in this debate, said Dr. Samir Sinha, director of health policy research at the National Institute on Ageing. He said the COVID-19 pandemic laid bare the chronic and dire situation in many of the country’s long-term care homes.

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Taking CPP early can cost you $100,000 and limit your long term options

By: Rob Carrick

“The idea is to flip the narrative to make people appreciate that this is a huge loss to them,” said actuary Bonnie-Jeanne MacDonald, director of financial security research at Ryerson University’s National Institute on Aging and author of a new paper called “Get the Most from the Canada and Quebec Pension Plans by Delaying Benefits.”

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Deaths, outbreaks on the rise in long term care homes

CBC News Network's Natalie Kalata speaks with Dr. Nathan Stall, Associate Fellow at the NIA.

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Pandemic report identifies failures across Canada in long-term care homes

Dr. Bob Bell, Senior Fellow at the NIA was Chair of the External Advisory Panel for the Revera Pandemic Report. Dr. Samir Sinha, Director of Health Policy Research at the NIA was a member of the expert advisory panel.

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COVID-19 second wave taking its toll on Ontario’s nursing homes

Ontario’s second wave of COVID-19 is hitting long-term care homes harder than the first wave. The toll it’s taking isn't just on the sick, but also on those that care for them — and there's little relief in sight.

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