Emotional care is vital, too

If the illness and death toll among the elderly caused by the COVID-19 pandemic has been devastating, the emotional impact on seniors in long-term care may apply to even more people over even longer periods.

Isolation has led to soul-crushing loneliness, in too many cases to despair, lost sense of purpose and value, lost will to carry on.

It’s encouraging, then, that the City of Toronto — and thanks in all this to the reporting of the Star’s Moira Welsh — is seeking historic investment in its proposed 2022 budget for more “emotion-centred” care in long-term-care homes.

With such residences often hard-pressed to fund adequate staffing and basic care and services, the emotional well-being of residents has too frequently been given short shrift.

New thinking and programs aim to put the individual needs of residents ahead of routine schedules, to enable people to live with greater friendship, freedom and activities that allow them to flourish at any age.

As Welsh reported last week, the city could see almost 300 new staff hired to introduce a model known as Care TO now being piloted at Lakeshore Lodge in Etobicoke.

The proposed budget, which must be passed by city council in a vote set for Feb. 7, seeks $4.1 million to begin expanding the program across the city starting next fall.

Mayor John Tory acknowledged that it was Welsh’s reporting about a Peel Region dementia unit that put wheels under the notion of emotion-centred care.

In 2017, Welsh began investigating the “Butterfly Model” home, which sought to replace the institutional model, the tight schedules and routines common in care homes for a more compassionate model based on the restorative and healthful properties of companionship, conversation, music and laughter.

Such programs do more than merely address clinical needs. They emphasize the importance of “care relationships” that embrace the interests of each person living in a home. The key to success is the extra staff and flexibility necessary to develop personal connections.

The Star’s series of stories was published in June 2018. The City of Toronto took notice. A researcher was hired to evaluate the U.K.based project and other such programs. And by March 2019, Toronto had a blueprint.

Councillor Josh Matlow observed at the time that he had seen many such reports consigned to dusty shelves and never thought of again.

With this one, Toronto had an opportunity to be among municipal leaders.

Welsh’s report said residents who previously passed their days staring at floors or watching TV were soon rejuvenated by involvement in activities they loved and the relationships that flowed from taking part in them.

Simone Weil famously said that “attention is the rarest and purest form of generosity.” Yet it is not easy to give.

The pandemic has shown us how difficult it is, under stress and the clamour of demands for our attention to focus on anything.

To Weil, “the capacity to give one’s attention to a sufferer is a very rare and difficult thing; it is almost a miracle.”

Let us say it is enough, for the moment, that the proposal in Toronto is a step toward a more human form of care, a much-needed means of connection and fulfilment for elders who deserve it.

And, in passing, that it illustrates the power and public worth of conscientious and compassionate journalism.

With long-termcare residences hard-pressed to fund adequate staffing and basic care and services, the emotional well-being of residents has too frequently been given short shrift