Nursing home residents in Ontario, Canada, are begging to go outside after spending a year inside due to lockdown orders and recently receiving the vaccine.
“We did nothing wrong; we’re not guilty of any crime,” Chuck Ferkranus, an Ontario nursing home resident, said. “If vaccinations don’t end the rules, if no one having COVID doesn’t end the restrictions, then what does it take before this comes to an end?”
There are about 150,000 nursing home residents in Ontario, many still confined indoors and cut off from seeing family. Ninety percent of residents living in long-term facilities are vaccinated against the coronavirus, according to Health Minister Christine Elliott.
Activists say the continued lockdown restrictions can hurt residents physically and mentally, adding that the extended isolation doesn’t make sense as scientific evidence shows the virus is less likely to spread outdoors than inside.
CORONAVIRUS CASES DOWN 96% IN NURSING HOMES SINCE BEGINNING OF VACCINE CAMPAIGN
“It just cannot go on like this; people are really suffering,” said Natalie Mehra, executive director of the Ontario Health Coalition. “We’re furious, and we’re heartbroken.”
One resident, Alfred Borg, said he hasn’t been outside for more than a year, and said he hasn’t had a proper shower in about six months as residents only get in-room sponge baths.
“All day long, we just sit in our room,” Borg said. “Why are we being treated so much differently from everyone else? It is not enough just being alive. We need a better quality of life.”
One lawyer in the area said the continued isolation is a violation of human rights and “illegal.”
The report comes ahead of Ontario announcing a province-wide shutdown beginning April 3 in response to a surge in coronavirus infections.
“We’re now fighting a new enemy. The new variants are far more dangerous than before. They spread faster, and they do more harm than the virus we were fighting last year. Young people are ending up in the hospital,” Ontario Premier Doug Ford said.
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Ford addressed nursing home residents being confined to their rooms last week, conveying he was sympathetic, but that caution is needed.
“I fully understand — my mother-in-law’s in there,” Ford said. “But we have to be super cautious.”
