“They’d rather be dead, than locked up in a room,” said Cheryl Spelliscy, who has joined a protest group demanding better care for seniors in long-term care facilities following the death of her own mother in a nursing home during the pandemic.
The ongoing fight for the most vulnerable during the COVID-19 pandemic arrived in Newmarket this afternoon with a small group of protesters at Southlake Residential Care Village and Eagle Terrace long-term care facilities, both of which are in the midst of COVID-19 outbreaks — the fourth at Southlake Village, and the third at Eagle Terrace.
Despite being vaccinated, most long-term care residents remain isolated in their rooms, even in facilities not in outbreak, under current regulations.
Protest organizer Sparky Johnson is travelling weekly to towns across Ontario to advocate for seniors living in what she said are deplorable conditions in long-term care homes.
Outside of Eagle Terrace this afternoon, holding a sign with the words "LTC Justice, We demand accountability, Care B4 Profits, #FordLiedPeopleDied", Johnson said she believes the solution is simple: funds need to be reallocated, and options to warehousing the elderly are needed.
The protestors are asking for smaller group homes and more regulations so seniors will receive the care they deserve and are paying for.
“We need accountability. We need transparency. We need justice,” Johnson said.
“(Premier Doug) Ford said only go out if it’s essential. Well, it’s essential to be out (here) as a citizen, to serve and protect,” she added.
Johnson, who has been advocating for the elderly for over 40 years, said staff aren’t to blame. She challenges lawmakers and policymakers to investigate and find out where corporations are hiding the funds provided by the government to properly care for the seniors.
“These people are very well aware of what’s going on and yet it’s by conscious choice, not naivety, they do nothing about this,” she said.
“The staff are set up to fail. They bring (in) outside agencies who don’t know the care plan. They don’t know the people.”
Dawn Shea, who lost her mother last October, says it was the neglect her mother faced in a nursing home that later led her to pick up a sign and protest for the rights of seniors in long-term care.
She now protests with her sister, Spelliscy, in the hope of making a difference.
“The minute she needed their help, they didn’t seem to care about her at all,” she said of her mother. “Which she noticed, big time.”
They say the ill treatment of their mother and other residents in a long-term care home in Niagara Falls motivated them to speak up against the Ontario government.
They’re still in talks with the Ministry of Long-term Care to try to understand what really happened, they say.
“I wish the government was onboard to change this,” Shea said.
According to Spelliscy, Ford’s government isn’t doing enough to hold the corporations accountable for the compromised conditions in which many seniors are living in long-term care and retirement homes.
“We want the government to do the right thing and that’s what we’re standing for,” she said.
“If they would pay the (PSWs) properly, the ones who already work there, they wouldn’t have to hire new ones. Hiring new ones isn’t going to help,” Spelliscy said.
Protesting and advocating for senior rights has made Spelliscy question her own future. She said she’d rather die than go into a long-term facility.
“I’m 65 years old, who knows if I’ll ever have to go into a home… I’m horrified,” Spelliscy said. ”I’m scared to death.”
She said society needs to do better for the seniors of our country.
Those who have taught us wisdom and tried to make this world a better place deserve more than this, she added.
The Ontario government has made efforts to protect seniors from contracting COVID-19, Johnson acknowledged, referring to when the military were brought in during the first wave of the pandemic to assist in the long-term care homes unable to control the outbreaks that took a devastating toll.
“One of our protestors actually worked at one of the homes where the military was called in,” she said. “The (operators) staffed the (home) prior to the military coming. The day after the military left and… put the fire out, they were all let go.”
