TORONTO -- Hundreds of Toronto doctors and nurse practitioners have penned an open letter to officials with the City of Toronto, Public Health Ontario, and Ontario Health, urging “rapid” action to prevent further outbreaks in the city’s shelter system.
The letter, which was released on Monday, is calling on health leadership in the province to immediately implement a number of measures at shelters, including issuing an order under the Health Protection and Promotion Act to ensure physical distancing of at least six feet between clients.
“We work in acute care hospitals and in community settings including clinics, boarding homes, and in shelters and respites. Many of us work directly with people experiencing homelessness and precarious housing,” the letter read.
“We are seeing first-hand the extreme toll that COVID-19 is taking on people who are the most marginalized. Our clients are no longer able to access many of the services they require for survival, including libraries, drop-ins, some food banks, and day programs.”
The group suggests that the lack of adequate physical distancing measures at shelters across the city is putting people experiencing homelessness at a “much higher risk” for contracting the respiratory illness and developing “severe” symptoms.
“Unless there is ongoing rapid action, we will see preventable deaths and outbreaks with broad public health implications during this pandemic,” the letter continued.
To date, city officials say there are 25 cases of COVID-19 across seven facilities within the shelter system and no deaths have been reported so far.
The authors of the open letter also want to see outreach testing and the “rapid opening” of more than 7,000 hotel rooms, housing units, and student residences to house members of the homeless population.
During a news conference at city hall on Monday, Mary-Anne Bedard, the head of Shelter, Support & Housing Administration for the City of Toronto, said that she “concurs” with many of the recommendations outlined in the letter.
“Many of those things are in fact in place,” she said.
Bedard said she has asked provincial partners to give testing priority to individuals who are homeless and has also asked for “proactive testing” so officials can have a better idea of how the virus is moving through the shelter system.
“We have also been working incredibly hard with our community partners across the sector to move people to create opportunities for social distancing,” she said.
“I can tell you that we’ve been successful in moving over 1,000 people so far, which is a significant amount of movement to create in the shelter system. And we will continue those efforts until we are able to create that physical distancing right across the sector,” Bedard said.
She said meanwhile, staff continue to work with partners across the sector to encourage screening and promote distancing in any way they can.
Some of the methods staff have used to create physical distancing include staggering meal times and limiting the amount of people in recreational spaces, Bedard said.
Last month, the city announced plans to open a recovery centre for members of the homeless population infected with COVID-19 but the opening of the facility has been delayed.
“We continue to work on activating that site,” Bedard said Monday, adding that she hopes to see the recovery centre open “in the very near future.”
