{"id":76330,"date":"2021-05-14T15:10:26","date_gmt":"2021-05-14T19:10:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newsroom.carleton.ca\/?post_type=cu_story&p=76330"},"modified":"2025-10-17T11:06:25","modified_gmt":"2025-10-17T15:06:25","slug":"improving-eldercare-andre-picard","status":"publish","type":"cu_story","link":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/story\/improving-eldercare-andre-picard\/","title":{"rendered":"Improving Eldercare:\u00a0Carleton Alumnus Andr\u00e9 Picard’s New Book Offers Prescription for Change"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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\n Improving Eldercare:\u00a0Carleton Alumnus Andr\u00e9 Picard's New Book Offers Prescription for Change\n <\/h1>\n \n <\/header>\n <\/div>\n\n \n <\/path>\n <\/path>\n <\/svg>\n <\/div>\n\n \n\n <\/div>\n<\/section>\n\n

At the end of April 2021, a 322-page report released by Ontario\u2019s Long-Term Care COVID-19 Commission <\/a>detailed an array of festering challenges\u2014including persistent underfunding, severe staffing shortages, outdated infrastructure and poor oversight\u2014that \u201ccontributed to deadly consequences for the province\u2019s most vulnerable citizens during the pandemic.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Andr\u00e9
Andr\u00e9 Picard<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

These problems, endemic across Canada in every type of eldercare, are not news to Andr\u00e9 Picard<\/a>, the award-winning Globe and Mail<\/em> health reporter and columnist<\/a> whose writing has helped keep Canadians informed throughout the biggest public health crisis in a century.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In fact, the Carleton University journalism school<\/a> alumnus and honorary degree recipient<\/a> has been covering issues associated with aging since starting at the national newspaper immediately after graduating 34 years ago.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhat lies do we have to tell ourselves to justify how senior citizens are treated?\u201d asks Picard, whose fifth book, Neglected No More<\/em><\/a>: The Urgent Need to Improve the Lives of Canada\u2019s Elders in the Wake of a Pandemic<\/em>, was published in March.<\/p>\n\n\n

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\u201cWe don\u2019t have to make the choices that we\u2019ve been making,\u201d he says. \u201cThe state of eldercare is one of the chronic holes in our medicare system, and the number of elders who have died so horribly is the most obvious tragedy that\u2019s occurred because of COVID-19 in Canada.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Nearly 70 per cent of all deaths in the country during the pandemic have been in nursing homes, according to a recent report from the Canadian Institute for Health Information<\/a>. The international average is just over 40 per cent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Despite countless inquiries that have called for eldercare reform, politicians have been \u201cfar more eager to order investigations than act on the problems that have been exposed,\u201d Picard writes in Neglected No More<\/em>, which he describes as a \u201crough blueprint\u201d for change.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIn Canadian health care, it seems, no screw-up, no matter how big or small, how sickening or deadly, is ever anyone\u2019s fault. It\u2019s always the fault of \u2018the system.\u2019 So, let\u2019s fix the damn system.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n

\"Improving<\/figure>\n\n\n

No Quick End to Restrictions<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

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In March 2020, Picard had been watching COVID-19 spread from China to Iran, Italy and the United States and, as a de facto health historian who covered the 2003 SARS outbreak, he understood that its arrival in Canada was imminent and inevitable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Neglected
Neglected No More<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe pandemic is an intersection of so many things that I\u2019ve written about for so many years: infectious diseases, the social determinants of health, race, class, politics,\u201d says Picard, noting that while Canada learned a lot from SARS, we remained arrogant about our ability to withstand the new coronavirus.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIn a sense, it\u2019s an amazing time to be a journalist because our craft is in the spotlight and is more needed than at any point over the past 100 years.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now that vaccine rollouts are accelerating, Picard\u2019s prediction, shared in an early January column, is that the pandemic will end not with a Hollywood-like moment of triumph, but will peter out with a whimper.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Masks, distancing and travel restrictions will be with us for the foreseeable future. The \u201cdurability of immunity\u201d remains a question. Variants will trigger cascading waves of illness around the world. And the economic and mental health fallout, especially among low-paid workers and other marginalized communities, will spark crucial social and political conversations and decisions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The pandemic will also serve as a wake-up call for the need to urgently fix the eldercare system in Canada, Picard hopes.<\/p>\n\n\n

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“We know that the solution starts with valuing quality of life for seniors, asking how<\/em> people want to live, not where they want to spend their final years, and enhanced home care that makes it easier for elders to remain in their communities, as well as addressing concerns such as funding, staffing and infrastructure in retirement and long-term care homes.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

\u201cIf we don\u2019t learn from this,\u201d says Picard, trailing off. \u201cA pandemic is a terrible thing to waste.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n

\"Senior<\/figure>\n\n\n

Baby Boomers Will Demand Change<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

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Despite the scale and complexity of the eldercare challenge, Picard is optimistic. The huge (and affluent) aging cohort of baby boomers has already reshaped our cities and education system and will demand change.<\/p>\n\n\n

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\u201cI\u2019m not na\u00efve,\u201d he says. \u201cI don\u2019t think we\u2019re going to resolve all of the inequities that the pandemic has exposed. But I think we\u2019ll improve eldercare. There are no political downsides or barriers, other than our willingness. Everybody loves their grandmother.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

In addition to reading, writing and spending too much time on Twitter these days, Picard is also a visiting professor at the UBC School of Journalism, Writing and Media.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He learned the fundamentals of reporting from industry veterans while studying at Carleton and now he\u2019s passing on that knowledge as a veteran himself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But mostly, he\u2019s focused on writing newspaper stories and columns\u2014the type of journalism that\u2019s vital to a healthy democracy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAt the end of the day,\u201d says Picard, \u201cI\u2019m still a daily grunt at heart.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n

\"Improving<\/figure>\n\n\n

—
\nMore Stories<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

At the end of April 2021, a 322-page report released by Ontario\u2019s Long-Term Care COVID-19 Commission detailed an array of festering challenges\u2014including persistent underfunding, severe staffing shortages, outdated infrastructure and poor oversight\u2014that \u201ccontributed to deadly consequences for the province\u2019s most vulnerable citizens during the pandemic.\u201d These problems, endemic across Canada in every type of eldercare, are […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":410,"featured_media":76337,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"cu_story_type":[17,28,25],"cu_story_tag":[1924,1921],"class_list":["post-76330","cu_story","type-cu_story","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","cu_story_type-alumni","cu_story_type-community-partnerships","cu_story_type-student-experience","cu_story_tag-advancement","cu_story_tag-faculty-of-public-and-global-affairs"],"acf":{"cu_post_thumbnail":"blueprint"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cu_story\/76330","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cu_story"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/cu_story"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/410"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cu_story\/76330\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":97474,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cu_story\/76330\/revisions\/97474"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/76337"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=76330"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"cu_story_type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cu_story_type?post=76330"},{"taxonomy":"cu_story_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cu_story_tag?post=76330"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}