Neglected No More

When COVID-19 spread through seniors' residences across Canada, the impact was horrific. Along with widespread illness and a devastating death toll, the situation exposed a decades-old crisis: the shocking systemic neglect towards our elders.

Called in to provide emergency care in some of the hardest-hit facilities in Ontario and Quebec, the military issued damning reports of what they encountered. And yet, the failings that were exposed--unappetizing meals, infrequent baths, overmedication, physical abuse and inadequate personal care--have persisted for years in these institutions.

In Neglected No More, André Picard takes a hard look at how we came to embrace mass institutionalization, and lays out what can and must be done to improve the state of care for our elders, a highly vulnerable population with complex needs and little ability to advocate for themselves.

Picard shows that the entire eldercare system — fragmented, underfunded and unsupported — is long overdue for a fundamental rethink. We need to find ways to ensure seniors can age gracefully in the community for longer, with supportive home care and respite for family caregivers, and ensure that long-term care homes are not warehouses of isolation and neglect. Our elders deserve nothing less. (From Random House Canada)

André Picard is a health reporter and columnist for the Globe and Mail. He can frequently be heard on CBC Radio. He has been nominated for the National Newspaper Awards eight times. His other books about health care include Matters of Life and Death, The Gift of Death and Critical Care.

• The best Canadian nonfiction of 2021
• 53 works of Canadian nonfiction coming out in spring 2021
• Lessons learned, forgotten from the 1st wave of the pandemic

Interviews with André Picard

Sickboy56:50Changing Lives, One Story At A Time With André Picard

Telling stories can change lives, and no one knows this better than André Picard. This week we chat with the big daddy of healthcare journalism. As Canada’s most prominent journalist on the health beat André has been through every major health event in the past few decades. He's been a long time dream guest of ours and we are absolutely honoured that André sat down with us nincompoops to talk about covering healthcare, protecting sources & keeping the powerful accountable.