Tuesday, July 20, 2021

Canada's Moral Failure

 Consider this:


Orders like these:

A nurse testified that the Sainte-Dorothée long-term care facility consistently administered morphine instead of attempting to prolong the life of elderly residents who were believed to have COVID-19.

“They didn’t all die but most did,” Sylvie Morin said.

Ms. Morin was an assistant chief nurse at Sainte-Dorothée, an LTC home north of Montreal where more than 100 residents died during the first wave of the pandemic last year.

“They made us put them all on the respiratory-distress protocol,” she testified.

She was alluding to a medical assessment tool where morphine, the sedative Ativan and scopolamine, an anti-nausea drug, are administered if a resident’s breathing troubles meet a number of criteria.

“It was like, they have respiratory distress, ‘Okay, we put them on the protocol.’ Morphine, scopolamine, Ativan,” Ms. Morin said.

“Which leads to death?” asked Patrick Martin-Ménard, a lawyer for the family of a deceased resident.

“Yes,” Ms. Morin replied.

 

These elderly people:

A Dorval long-term care facility is under provincial trusteeship after reports of residents being found malnourished, dehydrated and, in some cases, covered in feces.

 

I wouldn't want anyone to think that this shocking lack of care was unique to Quebec alone:

A Toronto long-term care home where 81 residents died of COVID-19 turned down advice from health officials to use “baby monitors” and “room dividers” to help create up to 20 potentially life-saving rooms for sickened residents, according to emails from Toronto Public Health.

 

(Sidebar: read the comments. Count the ones that demand government action but never question how callous people charged with the care of the elderly and even themselves have become so callous and apathetic.)

** 

Russell, described by her family as exceptionally social and spry, was one such person. Her family says she chose a medically-assisted death (MAID) after she declined so sharply during lockdown that she didn’t want to go through more isolation this winter.

 

(Sidebar: did anyone talk this demonstrably lonely lady out of this legalised murder? No?) 


Make no mistake: I do not fault people who cannot care for the physically and mentally fragile or those who desperately tried to visit their elderly relatives but were prevented from doing so.

I blame those who, morally, just couldn't give a sh--.


One day, that will be you lying in a soiled bed, alone, watching exasperated and underpaid workers clean up after people they have been ordered to medicate but not save. Your youthful pride will cause you to declare that you are your own god and will do as you wish. But, truthfully, the matter will be out of your frail hands and into the hands of those who see only expense, not someone on this earth for a purpose.

I guess spiritual emptiness does that.

 


No comments: