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Seniors in long-term care left behind again

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Leading advocacy organization calls for immediate prioritization of vaccination

TORONTO, December 10, 2020 – CanAge, Canada’s national seniors’ advocacy organization, is concerned that the COVID vaccine will not be made immediately available to residents and workers in long-term care homes.

Instead, vaccines will be delivered to 14 “delivery sites” across the country, to which people must travel in order to be inoculated. Eventually 200 sites will exist.

“We understand and appreciate that there is a cooling issue,” says Laura Tamblyn Watts, CEO of CanAge, the national seniors’ advocacy group. “But we pledged as a nation to do a better job of protecting our most vulnerable and those who care for them.”

During the first wave of COVID-19, fully 82% of deaths occured in long-term care.

CanAge is on record about the need for larger investment in infection prevention. In its VOICES of Canada’s Seniors: A Roadmap to an Age-Inclusive Canada, CanAge states “Currently, infection control in long-term and congregate care settings is very difficult to manage, leading to a significant spread of infection, illness, and tragic loss of life. This needs to improve immediately.”

“We are prepared to do whatever it takes to help get these vaccines into long-term care, Indigenous communities, and front-line health care workers, as the National Advisory Committee on Immunization recently recommended,” says Tamblyn Watts.

CanAge is Canada’s national seniors advocacy organization that works to advance the rights and well-being of Canadians as we age. We work collaboratively with corporations, nonprofits, the media, and governments to amplify seniors’ issues, influence policy and effect change. To learn more, visit www.canage.ca.

For more information or to book an interview:
Lisa Hartford
Communications Director
CanAge
[email protected] or call 647.466.8053

Related

Canada’s National Seniors’ Advocacy Organization

Factor-Inwentash Faculty of Social Work
University of Toronto

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