The CEO of the BC Care Providers is calling for a more regional approach to long term care homes visits in the province.

Terry Lake made those comments in response to what he called an excellent survey by the Seniors Advocate that looked at the impact of visitor restrictions because of COVID-19.

“Its a very fine balancing act because everyone wants to protect this very vulnerable population and we don’t want to see spread into long term care and assisted living facilities,” he told NL News. “But at the same time the Seniors Advocate has said people are spending their last days separated from their families.”

Lake says given that the majority of cases are in Fraser Health, it would make sense to ease restrictions slightly in places like the Interior and Vancouver Island where there isn’t as much community transmission.

“Fraser Health was responsible for three-quarters of the positive cases released yesterday,” Lake said. “Perhaps you tighten things up there but here in the Interior where we had 36 cases over the weekend, perhaps there is a great opportunity to have more visits and a little bit of a different approach where you have high community spread.”

The survey by Isobel Mackenzie found that the biggest fear of people in long-term and assisted-living facilities is not contracting COVID-19, but rather not getting to spend quality, meaningful time with their loved ones as they near the end of their lives.

“Over 4,500 people have passed away in long term care over the last seven months and only 150 or so from COVID-19. So that means a lot of people have passed away without having that close connection to their family that they would have had otherwise,” Lake noted.

“That is very sad for families.”

He says while Provincial Health Officer Dr. Bonnie Henry and Health Minister Adrian Dix weren’t receptive to regional restrictions two months ago, they appear to be more willing these days.

Last week, health officials in B.C. said changes to the rules around visiting loved ones in long-term care homes are coming, but it remains to be seen when that happens.