In the years preceding World War II, France, fearful of the rising and aggressive German military power built a massive line of fortifications along the German/French border, with a secondary and weaker defensive line along the Belgium border. The formidable concrete bunkers with its large protected cannons were seen as the ultimate deterrent to the German invasion. The Maginot Line was seen in France as a model of good planning and strategy, its massive cost justified if the wall could keep France safe.The Germans simply went around the line, exploiting a weakness through the Ardennes forest in Belgium, completely outflanking the French, leading to a lightning-quick German victory.
And so it seems that the Quebec government's thorough and seemingly well-thought preparations in the face of the coming Wuhan coronavirus suffered from the same faulty logic employed by the French which is and was essentially barring the front door effectively, but leaving the back door open.
Perhaps it's understandable that with the lessons of the disastrous Italian response to the virus, where hospitals were suddenly overloaded, leading to massive numbers of deaths, Quebec decided to empty its hospitals by postponing elective surgeries and sending any long term senior patients to government-run nursing homes.
When the virus struck the government ordered everybody to shelter in place but failed utterly to seal off the nursing homes, with personnel transferring between institutions and snowbirds, fresh from Florida and family just off school break, where many travelled to Europe bringing the virus into the nursing homes with deadly effect.
And so our hospitals were ready and indeed are performing well, but the virus, like the German army, struck through the back door in these nursing facilities with deadly consequence, an attack the Quebec government never contemplated or even fathomed.
So much for the experts.
And so it seems that all the king's horses and all the king's men cannot put our nursing homes together again!
Such is the result of a massive catastrophic planning failure.
I hate to say I told you so, but this lowly and lonely blogger warned of just this catastrophe in a post entitled The Government is Handling Covid-19 All Wrong...
How big is the disaster?
70% of all virus-related deaths in Quebec have occurred in the nursing homes, where the virus ripped through the vulnerable at an astonishing rate.
In fact, those healthy citizens under 60 years old who do catch the virus have a 99.%+ chance of recovering, while those over 60 years with health problems who get infected have an alarming fatality rate of between 20% and who knows what.
The government's policy of locking down the young and healthy seems overkill and is not necessary.
All the government had to do was tell seniors to lock down and to force senior residences to lock-down completely
But the virus has already spread to many of these homes and where it has, the consequences are and will be deadly.
Underpaid staff have also been struck by the illness, with other employees abandoning ship in the face of the onslaught. The remaining $15 an hour employees are expected to work 90 hours a week with no protective equipment. The current policy that those possibly exposed to the virus be self-isolated has to be thrown out the windows for these unfortunate workers. They are forced to work despite being exposed because their services are deemed crucial considering that there's nobody to replace them.
I am reminded of those emergency workers sent into the fray after the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, deliberately exposed to deadly radiation because there was no other option. Those who fought the disaster without protection had their lives consciously sacrificed by the government.
Sound familiar?
One nursing home in Verdun actually locked the doors (twice) so that staff could not escape after their shift.
Premier Legault, channelling Donald Trump, complained that the nursing home situation is so bad because the previous government was to blame for the chronic under-funding.
At any rate, Quebec's disastrous nursing home situation is exacerbated by the high numbers of seniors populating these homes.
The dirty little secret is that Quebecers institutionalize the elderly at a rate three times that of Ontario. It seems that in Quebec bothersome mothers and fathers are shuffled off to be warehoused in these homes at an alarming rate.
It is a shameful dereliction of filial responsibility, a practice incited because of Quebec's cradle to grave government welfare state, where responsibility is shifted away from the individual.
It seems that her mother who lives alone in an apartment has cancer and is being treated on an outpatient basis. Because of the pandemic, those treatments have been postponed and worse, a government social worker who visits her and provides in-home care, several times a week has not been coming recently for reasons you can imagine.
The woman was distraught that her mother wasn't receiving the care she was due and that she and her five sisters are deathly afraid that mom will die alone in her lonely apartment.
REALLY????
Does anyone out there see a problem where six sisters cannot provide a modicum of care and support?
Not one in six or all six combined are prepared to financially support a private care worker to provide extra care.
Not one in six or all six combined are prepared to take her in or visit daily?
All this dereliction of family responsibility while haranguing the government for failing their mom. It's nothing short of disgusting.
Is this the Quebec reality that seniors are consigned to the trash heap by a society that abdicates all personal responsibility in favour of a government that is too incompetent to do the job anyway?
After the virus lays waste and empties our senior homes, perhaps we should consider what is right before filling them up again.
