Special Feature: Covid in the House of Old

My Dear Readers:

One of Canada’s first public commemorations of the pandemic, COVID in the House of Old, is a poignant multimedia installation. This exhibition acknowledges the "thousands of seniors who died in care homes or endured months of isolation, the staff who faced an overwhelming burden of care, and the families and friends unable to visit or help their loved ones." In Canada’s "first wave of the pandemic, 82 per cent of deaths took place in long-term care facilities. That’s 3,436 residents and six staff members dead," according to the National Institute of Aging.

In her January 12 interview with The Tyee, titled "Canadians Shouldn't Forget About This," Megan Davies, a professor and historian of health at York University, emphasizes, "Canada’s had the highest percentage of COVID deaths in long-term care among wealthy countries... I think of this as a national humanitarian crisis, to let all these vulnerable people get infected. ... The idea of a “good” death is valued across cultures, ... and many COVID patients in care homes had that “violated.”

Her multimedia exhibit, COVID in the House of Old, features "intimate audio stories of residents, their families and workers in long-term care facilities in B.C. and Ontario." Designed as a travelling exhibition, COVID in the House of Old takes viewers on a journey to connect with the personal stories of grief and frustration, care and love. And she concludes the interview with the following remark:

Canadians really shouldn’t forget about this, ... This is such a huge issue of injustice that happened right on our doorstep.

To conclude today's special feature post, I would like to share with you the following entries about my experiences, direct and indirect, of "Covid in the House of Old," which are taken from my Coronavirus Poetry Diary:

Tenth Entry, March 2, 2020

nursing home silhouette 

I air high-five my old friend

at the window

Thirty-Eighth Entry, April 26

written in response to CTV News on April 24, A National Disgrace: 1475 deaths in long-term care homes and nursing homes are made up of 67% of the total number of coronavirus deaths in Canada

strong wind warning

four more body bags wheeled out

of a nursing home

Forty-Fourth Entry, May 2

a tired nurse

opens the bedside window

my friend's voice

flows in with the night breeze

as his mother's eyes close 

Fifty-Eighth Entry, Ma15

Talk the Talk

To Justin Trudeau who addressed the House of Commons on saving the elderly from coronavirus on April 11, saying, They fought for us all those years ago. And today we fight for them. We will show ourselves to be worthy of this magnificent country they built.

at the briefing

the photogenic PM's mouth

opens and closes ...

a nursing home silhouetted

against the sunset sky

forty more deaths

slides across the bottom

of the screen ...

a nurse's voice falters,

this elder genocide

Seventy-Second Entry, May 29

a hu-hundred 

th-thousand deaths ...

his husky voice

echoes in a room

of the nursing home

Eightieth Entry, June 14

fallen stars ...

a tired nurse murmuring

this large number

of faceless, nameless

Covid19 deaths

Eighty-Second Entry, June 19

the rainstorm sky

in her grandmother's eyes

nursing home window

One Hundredth Entry, August 18

a late night call

from his grandmother

this stormy night

splits into before

and after the outbreak

One Hundred Forty-Second Entry, November 26

 

more restrictions

for Thanksgiving holiday?

bare branches 

tapping at the windows 

of a nursing home

One Hundred Seventy-Fifth Entry, February, 2021

sound of ice pellets

against nursing home windows ...

new cases surge

Stay safe and well

Chen-ou