B.C. Seniors Advocate Isobel Mackenzie

(DANA REYNOLDS / iNFOnews.ca)

It will take two months before B.C. Seniors Advocate Isobel Mackenzie can collect the data she needs on the impacts of the COVID-19 lockdown and visitation rules on both residents of long term care homes and their families.

That may be too late for some of the 40,000 seniors living in these facilities in B.C.

“We really have to understand that time is more important for people in long-term care and assisted living because, frankly, they have less of it,” Mackenzie said during a news conference today, Aug. 26, to announce the launch of an online survey.

Some residents have asked families to help them with assisted suicide because their lives have become unlivable in the isolation they are suffering under since family visits were stopped in March and were only resumed on a very limited basis in July.

READ MORE: Locked in long term care 'prison:' Woman asks for assisted suicide rather than continue in COVID-19 isolation

Currently only one visitor is allowed and there is a great variety in how different care homes allow those visitors. That has led to cases where close family members have only been able to visit a relative — who seemed healthy before COVID-19 — when they are on their deathbeds.

There have been 125 long-term care residents who have died from COVID-19 in the past seven months, Mackenzie said. But there has also been another 2,000 who have died from other causes, some of which may be related to the lockdown and subsequent isolation and loneliness.

She’s not able to say how COVID-19 measures have changed mortality of nursing home patients. For example, measures to protect residents from COVID-19 may also have protected them from other bugs and viruses that would have caused deaths in other years. There could have been more falls or infections. That data may be available in about a month.

READ MORE: 'Serious inquiry' needed into B.C.’s lockdown of long-term care homes due to COVID-19

What Mackenzie launched today is a survey that is trying to catalogue the experiences of residents and their families in terms of how things were before COVID-19, in the early days of the lockdown and now.

The survey, called Staying Apart to Stay Safe: The Impact of Visitor Restrictions on Long-term Care and Assisted Living can be taken on line at carehomevisits.ca or by phone at 1-877-952-3181 between now and Sept. 30. She hopes to have the results put into a report by the end of October.

That doesn’t mean that changes can’t be made sooner.

For example, she’s trying to understand why some homes allow visitors once a week in a residents’ rooms versus others that may be once a month and require the visitors to stay two metres away from their loved ones in a common area.

There may be a need for the government to set minimum standards, she said.

While it will take two more months before the survey is done, Mackenzie noted that COVID-19 and restrictions on care home visits are likely to be around for at least another year and maybe more – which could be the lifetime of some residents.

“We want to keep people safe from COVID-19 but what are we keeping them safe for if it’s not to enjoy the rest of their lives?” Mackenzie said.

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