Major Canadian survey calls for new national long-term care standards featuring emotion-based care

he message from the public is “loud and clear,” said Dr. Samir Sinha, chair of the National Long-Term Care Services Technical Committee.

“We need long-term care where residents are living in homes that feel like homes, where staff are valued and supported and we are thinking of the value of residents’ lives and not just meeting their basic care needs,” said Sinha, director of geriatrics for Sinai Health and University Health Network.

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Toronto is recording second-lowest COVID vaccination rates among those over 80 in Ontario

Despite a nearly year-long effort to immunize seniors against COVID-19, Toronto is one of the health units with the lowest vaccine coverage rates in the province among the 80-plus age group. Provinces with smaller populations than Ontario have done particularly well due to strong information systems."

"They know where their older people are, and they know how to reach them,” says Dr. Samir Sinha, NIA co-chair and Director of Health Policy Research.

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Is ageing in place feasible given the current level of government and social supports?

Not surprisingly given the tragic effect of the pandemic on the residents of long term care homes, many Canadians say they want to 'age in place'.

"Canadians have woken up to the idea that we have been on autopilot as a country when it comes to elder care for the past several decades, and now is the perfect opportunity to help more Canadians age-in-place," says NIA's Executive Director, Michael Nicin.

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Can your clients afford to grow old?

Michael Nicin, the Executive Director of Ryerson University’s National Institute on Ageing, stops short of calling the long-term care and vulnerable aging situation that’s coming for Canada’s ageing population a crisis, but he’s got a lot of sobering financial data and questions for advisors to consider as they help their clients prepare for this stage – and he’s urging them to start asking those questions now.

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Canadians want to age in place, but how feasible is this?

"In Canada for every dollar we spend for elder care, 87 cents goes into brick and mortar nursing homes, and only 13 cents of every dollar goes into ageing at home," says NIA's Executive Director, Michael Nicin.

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Getting long term care staff vaccinated against COVID-19 key to ending outbreaks in homes

Dr. Samir Sinha, NIA Director of Health Policy Research, is one of many advocates who called for Ontario make vaccinations mandatory for long term care workers. "Right now, 99% of our residents in long-term care homes are vaccinated and on average, just over 90% of staff, but that rate can be much lower in a number of homes. And that's where we're now seeing, in this fourth wave, sadly, the number of outbreaks develop," says Dr. Sinha.

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LTC is still a ‘top of mind’ issue for constituents in HaliburtonCKL

In fact, national HSO standards for long-term care already exist and are used as the accreditation criteria for about 58 per cent of all homes in Canada, according to Dr. Samir Sinha, NIA Director of Health Policy Research and Chair of one of the technical committees working to rewrite those standards.

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Advisory committee recommends COVID-19 vaccine boosters for long-term care residents

Kelly Cutrara talks to Dr. Samir Sinha, NIA Director of Health Policy Research about COVID-19 vaccine booster shots for residents of long-term care homes.

"Some recent studies based in Ontario and Canada have been showing that older people, particularly those living in long-term care settings tend to see a waned immunity much more than, say, the staff members caring for them," says Dr. Sinha.

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Want to avoid living in a seniors’ home? Start planning now to age in place

A survey from the National Institute of Ageing and Telus Health released last fall found that 91 per cent of Canadians of all ages, and almost 100 per cent of Canadians 65 years of age and older, plan on supporting themselves to live safely and independently in their own home as long as possible.

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Unannounced long-term care inspections to improve enforcement

"The challenge that we have here is that we have many of the right mechanisms in place. By 2018, what we began seeing under this new government is that year over year, we were having a decreased amount of these unannounced, comprehensive [long-term care] inspections occurring. These inspections would include things like infection prevention and control issues, for example. And by being unannounced, you're more likely to find other issues, other things to address," says Dr. Samir Sinha, NIA Director of Health Policy Research.

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COVID-19 vaccine boosters recommended for long-term care residents, national advisory committee says

Dr. Samir Sinha, NIA Director of Health Policy Research, applauded the move to provide booster shots to long-term care residents.

Although he would have liked to see the recommendation come out sooner, NACI was right to make it specific to people living in long-term care or other congregate-living environments, Sinha said, noting it should not yet be extrapolated to apply to all seniors.

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National Institute on Ageing research director counsels Iceland on Long-Term Care reform

“Over the past six years, my ongoing engagement with my colleagues in Iceland helped me to cultivate a deeper understanding of this country’s population, their attitudes towards ageing, and the challenges and opportunities they have been encountering as they age,” says Dr. Sinha, Director of Healthy Policy Research, National Institute on Ageing and adjunct professor at the Ted Rogers School of Management.

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Province looking at toughening long-term care enforcement as part of revamp

Dr. Samir Sinha, NIA Director of Health Policy Research, said enforcement is key, as is working with homes to help them reach standards. “Regulations and standards are useless and meaningless if they are not upheld on behalf of the close to 100,000 older Ontarians who rely on long-term care services each year,” says Dr. Sinha.

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Snowbirds eye return to Florida even as sunshine state battles COVID-19

Dr. Samir Sinha says any snowbirds considering a trip to Florida should consider the added risks they're facing as older adults. "With more COVID spreading and [a] more highly unvaccinated population there, there's a greater risk that they might contract COVID," said Sinha, NIA Director of Health Policy Research.

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Long-term care outbreaks are rising, and provinces have different strategies for keeping COVID-19 out

“It reminds us how vulnerable this population remains, because while we'll say, 'wow, you know, almost a hundred per cent of long-term care residents across Canada are vaccinated,’ we're having outbreaks in these homes,” Dr. Samir Sinha, NIA Director of Health Policy Research, told CTVNews.ca in a phone interview. “These residents are still getting sick, they’re still dying.”

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Federal government needs to put more cash into long-term care to legislate safety, say experts

The Liberals promised to legislate guaranteed quality care under what they’ve dubbed the Safe Long-Term Care Act, and pledged $9 billion to the cause over five years – but Dr. Samir Sinha, NIA Director of Health Policy Research, said the money would not go far enough.

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This elderly man is finally home from hospital after his family says he caught COVID-19 from a support worker

Dr. Samir Sinha, Director of Health Policy Research, says that it is difficult to diagnose long COVID in older people because they are more likely to already be living with multiple chronic conditions. "Sometimes it's a bit hard to understand whether it's purely a long COVID symptom, or it may be a reflection of other illnesses or diseases, for example, that have now progressed because of the disease."

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The NIA updates their COVID-19 Visit Risk tool

"Every three months we update the tool based on feedback we get from users who send us comments. We're now re-launching our third version which basically takes into account larger gatherings, younger age groups, and allows users to answer 'unsure' on some questions where they may be unsure on certain details of the gathering," says Dr. Samir Sinha, NIA Director of Health Policy Research.

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The Forefront, Ryerson University - The New Age of Aging

More than one in six Canadians are now at least 65 years old. Many Canadian families are already juggling the responsibilities of caring for their parents and their own children. The wait lists for long term care are outliving the patients on them. What can be done?

In this episode, we’ll speak with Dr. Michael Nicin, Executive Director, Ryerson’s National Institute on Ageing, and Karen Cumming, Journalist, Author of The Indispensable Survival Guide to Ontario's Long-Term Care System, about the realities facing our ageing population.

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The campaign that was, and the campaign that could have been

"This is where I'm disappointed, frankly, when I see all of the party platforms," said Dr. Samir Sinha, the NIA Director of Health Policy Research, who spoke with Manly before the Green MP tabled his proposal. "I feel like everyone's kind of nipping at certain things in a retail way, as opposed to fundamentally dealing with the root of the issues. Because I don't think anything promised is going to prevent another devastating pandemic [from ripping] through Canada's long-term care homes."

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