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Thanks for keeping this in the public eye. No easy answers, I’m not sure I agree with all of mine today, but we must keep trying!!

[Translated] I am not happy with the current nursing home system and it is a system that is focused on services and not on people. It is desirable that this changes with everyone’s help.

[translated] I would gladly take care of my family members if there were not serious issues that put a big barrier between me and them. It’s easy to place the responsibility on the shoulders of family members when one needs support, but no one considers that the one who is supposed to be the caregiver may be rejected from this role. It is a particular situation, but unfortunately not unique.

[Translated] I would like such surveys to be more efficient and to have more participation in them, and consequently I would like to talk and learn more about these issues in order to take action and make life easier for many individuals.

[…] When Covid came along it destroyed very important connections that enable older people in nursing homes to keep going & stay connected, to keep hope alive – the deterioration in my Mother in just 18 months was, & still is, devastating & resulted in her recent death. All those months we were unable to be by her side & keep her going, instead she wasted away as she was unable to comprehend what was going on with Covid, yet she was aware enough to know we were no longer with her. Looking through a window trying to communicate love & care to someone with dementia & who is very confused about why you wouldn’t come inside was one of the cruelest experiences. It was terrible to witness just how much our older people are let down by lack of creative, adequate, & in my opinion humane, care options because even in times of desperation when I considered taking my Mother out of the nursing home to live with me the pain of knowing that was not possible was very heavy as I knew the reality of what it had been like 4 years previously trying to care for her – lack of adequate home help, lack of adequate services – & now along now with significantly increased care needs it would have been a recipe for crisis. I became very unwell physically when I’d been involved in her care prior to her going to live in the nursing home.”

[translated] Sacrificing one life for another seems unacceptable to me. Everyone should be able to benefit from quality, professional services.

[translated] Long-term care should be almost exclusively the prerogative of state institutions that should have the necessary infrastructure and resources to respond to the needs of older people and their families.

[Translated] Support and training for family caregivers is needed in many ways.

[translated] There is a need to develop care services in the country, especially home (community-based) care as well as mental health, rehabilitation and recovery, and palliative care services.

[…] My elderly grandmother lived with my family for 25 years and she needed substantial care for the last 15 years of that. My mother was a full time carer for her and could not work. There was definitely family expectation that this would be the case. Eventually she was too frail to be at home and she lived in a nursing home for the the last 10 or so years of her life. Both of my parents mental and physical health improved substantially after that. They were still involved in visiting frequently, bringing food, doing laundry but they were also able to live their own lives. I feel very strongly that care should be provided for older people