The warm summer days are fast becoming extinct and it won’t be long now until the snow flies and we are caught in the grip of another winter. The most isolating season for Canadians to endure, complete with long dark nights, polar vortexes, and closed roads. For many, the best way to break through the doldrums of winter is through gathering with others, whether it be for hockey practice, church choir, or if you are a parent with young children, early years programming at local municipal buildings.
Early years programming is very important for parents and children alike. Young children learn from each other and the building blocks for how to function with others outside of your nuclear family are laid down. For new parents, it can be isolating at home with young children and infants and winter can make it even harder to socialize. These programs are some of the best defenses for issues like postpartum depression. The response to COVID-19 led to cancelling of many necessary programs, yet we are finally seeing a return now… for some.
COVID-19 has caused an increase in postpartum depression and now we are going to limit who can access these essential programs. A study conducted by Simone N. Vigod et al, published in the peer-reviewed Canadian Medical Association Journal in June 2021, stated the following:
“Over the first nine months of the COVID-19 pandemic, clinical visits for postpartum mental illness were significantly more frequent than would have been expected from pre-pandemic patterns. Higher visit rates were seen in both primary and specialist care, most prominently for anxiety disorders.”
In the concluding thoughts, study authors provided advice that health systems should focus on high-risk patients and exploring creative ways to expand capacity while cautioning that further evidence surrounding the safety and effectiveness of virtual care should be sought out. Nowhere in this paper does it state that it would be a good idea to restrict access to care, yet that is exactly what several surrounding municipalities have done. In the name of COVID, they have told new parents that they are not welcome if they are not willing to get a vaccine. This in spite of our own local doctors admitting in a full page ad in the Listowel Banner last week that pregnant and breastfeeding women were not included in trials of mRNA vaccines. The vast majority of us believe it to be safe, a truly wonderful thing, but who are we to judge a new parent who may be hesitant and wishes to wait?
We now live in a world where asking the question ‘why are we doing this’ gets you branded as an anti-science, anti-vaxxer. How dare we ask questions about what is being accomplished. It is as though we are all expected to abandon the scientific method that requires robust questioning in a neverending quest to improve our knowledge because government knows what is best for us.
Preserving hospital capacity has become the reason de jour for vaccine segregation and this selection of headlines gives support to that notion:
“Spike in Patient Numbers has Ontario Hospitals Bursting at Seams” (CBC)
“Surge in patients forces Ontario hospitals to put beds in ‘unconventional spaces’” (Toronto Star)
“Critically ill patients sent to Sarnia due to ICU overload” (Windsor Star)
Each of these articles talks about health care sector worker burnout, a dilapidated long-term care sector, and a province that has not properly invested in health care capacity. We have seen countless articles over the past 18 months outlining this problem. It is a compelling argument that needs to be considered yet think about this – the three aforementioned headlines are from 2016-17, long before COVID entered into the discussion.
Hospital capacity challenges during the seasonal surges associated with viral respiratory diseases is not new, it has been an issue in Ontario for over a decade. According to the Ontario Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care there were 50,000 hospital beds in Ontario as of 1990. Today that number has shrunk to 32,000. This while Ontario’s population increased by over four million people and the Baby Boomers, in their prime back in the early 90s, are just starting to hit the system in meaningful ways.
It is necessary that discussions are had about the most effective ways to address this systemic problem of health care capacity, but it is time to stop blaming people and shaming them into something they may not be comfortable with. Through the lens of public health, it is far more harmful to restrict access to early years programming for a new parent and their children than the cumulative risks of having a tiny minority of unvaccinated participants in the same room. Fear-based communications have caused fully-vaccinated people to become afraid of even being in the presence of an unvaccinated person; again something more harmful to societal health than the act itself.
This policy of segregation is just the most recent in a string of COVID prevention policies that are harmful to public health. Children will suffer more than necessary, addiction and mental health issues will continue to rise more than necessary, and most shamefully, people will continue to fear those who choose a different path, leading to more division, more hate, and a less happy world.
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Stewart Skinner is a local business owner, former political candidate, and has worked at Queen’s Park as a Policy Advisor to the Minister of Agriculture, Food, and Rural Affairs. He can be reached at stewart@stonaleenfarms.ca or on Twitter: @modernfarmer.
