Established by the President of the Royal Society of Canada in April 2020, the RSC Task Force on COVID-19 was mandated to provide evidence-informed perspectives on major societal challenges in response to and recovery from COVID-19.
The Task Force established a series of Working Groups to rapidly develop Policy Briefings, with the objective of supporting policy makers with evidence to inform their decisions.
Policy Briefings have three sections:
- Context and policy status before COVID-19
- Vulnerabilities exposed as a result of COVID-19
- Principles for action and leading options.
Full Report Here
Executive Summary
This Policy Briefing Report on Long-Term Care focuses on the workforce. The report begins by reviewing the research context and policy environment in Canada’s long-term care sector before the arrival of COVID-19. It summarizes the existing knowledge base for far-sighted and integrated solutions to challenges in the long-term care sector. The report then outlines profound, long-standing deficiencies in the long-term care sector that contributed to the magnitude of the COVID-19 crisis. Equally important contributors to this crisis are the characteristics of the older adults living in nursing homes, their caregivers and the physical environment of nursing homes. The long-standing deficiencies in Canada’s long-term care sector and the characteristics of the key players had direct impact on the immediate causes of the COVID-19 crisis in our nursing homes. This report enumerates those immediate causes.
The report then articulates principles for action and recommendations for urgent action.
Members of the Working Group on Long-Term Care
Carole Estabrooks (Chair), University of Alberta
Pat Armstrong, York University
Véronique Boscart, Conestoga College
Gail Donner, University of Toronto
Francine Ducharme, Université de Montréal
Colleen Flood, University of Ottawa
Janice Keefe, Mount Saint Vincent University
James Silvius, University of Calgary
Sharon Straus, University of Toronto
Michael Wolfson, University of Ottawa
This report has also been published in the FACETS collection of RSC Policy Briefings. The report is available here.
For further information or for media requests, contact Russel MacDonald at rmacdonald@rsc-src.ca.
