After complaints about long-term care surged between the start of the pandemic in March to the end of June, Ontario’s Patient Ombudsman is making recommendations to help with the rising cases of COVID-19.

In a just released report, the ombudsman heard about several issues, mostly commonly ones around visitation, infection prevention and control, qualify of care and staffing.

”What is clear is that we must prevent what happened from happening again,” says Ombudsman Cathy Fooks.

She makes four recommendations:

Contingency plans and backstops for all health-care providers in the event of outbreaks, enhanced whistleblower protections for workers bringing forward concerns, adequate resources to ensure communication between patients, residents and families, as well as changes to visitation.

Fooks suggests the province not entirely restrict visitors but permit a limited number of essential caregivers to visit with infection control measures.

The ombudsman’s now conducting a broader systemic investigation into long-term care outbreaks. 

Those findings are expected next year.