Source: The Huffington Post

By Al Donato

Here’s how two Ontarians answered, “Should I bring my parent home?”

“Please don’t let her get sick when she can’t see me.”

Tara Moriarty tweeted the sentence, along with a smiling photo of her 76-year-old mom, in mid-March. Moriarty’s mom had just moved into a Toronto seniors’ home and days later the residence banned visits to reduce the pandemic’s spread. Seeing coverage of COVID-19 cases in Ontario’s long-term care homes worried her, but her mother’s progressing dementia required care that overwhelmed Moriarty and her partner. “She’s safer there than with us,” they believed.

Two weeks later, that no longer rang true for the couple. Public health officials were raising the alarm about failings in the long-term care system. Horrific reports of COVID-19 seniors’ home outbreaks were rising. That included an emerging story from Quebec, where 31 people reportedly died in less than a month in Résidence Herron in Dorval.

“At that point, I was like, ‘It’s going to happen everywhere, that’s it,’” she told HuffPost Canada.

The couple drove for nearly 10 hours in early April to take Moriarty’s mom out of the residence and bring her to their Sudbury, Ont., home.

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