‘s 84-year-old mother has more difficulty moving and expressing herself.“My mother, she told me, ‘I don’t know if I’ll still be able to walk when I’ve finished my 10 days,”’ Béland said in a recent interview, adding that her mother now struggles to get out of a chair.“It’s very difficult for them to maintain their mobility when they’re confined in a room for 10 days.”Béland’s mother, Lorraine, lives at the Ressource de la Montagne, an “intermediate” care facility in Montreal, which offers a higher level of care than a seniors residence but less than a traditional long-term care home.
Quebec unprepared for 1st wave of COVID-19 pandemic, leading to long term care deaths Like in other residential care facilities in the province, residents are required to isolate for 10 days if a worker or another resident on their floor tests positive for COVID-19.Béland, who chairs a committee representing residents at her mother’s facility, said she agrees COVID-19-positive residents should isolate.
But she says she worries a 10-day isolation period for others on their floor causes more harm than good.Earlier this week, the users committee at the health authority in west-central Montreal, which runs the facility where Béland’s mother lives, sent a letter to Quebec’s health minister and the seniors minister, calling for the isolation period to be shortened.
With high vaccination rates in residential care facilities, and evidence that the Omicron variant causes less serious illness, the physical and mental health impacts of the isolation period are too high, the letter said.“The majority of seniors, they’ve already had their third dose of vaccine, they’re well-vaccinated,” Béland said.