The policy pursued since 2014 of closing the kitchens of CHSLDs to centralize them and feed the elderly with reheated meals, prepared two to three days previously, has not helped to strengthen them in the face of COVID.
In 2014 in a French USLD (long-term care unit), 36% of the elderly had a vitamin C deficiency and 20%. Is the metabolic profile of the elderly regularly assessed in order to detect deficiencies? Among others vitamins C and D, selenium, zinc, which would reduce the severity of COVID?
Everyone knows that reheating a dish causes it to lose its nutritional value, not to mention the taste. All the more so since already processed foods must be used in these industrial kitchens.
We deprive residents of one of their rare pleasures, which is not without affecting their morale. Ditto for attendants, doctors, nurses, dieticians, who are forced to do the opposite of what we advocate: prevention through better nutrition.
What a contrast to Denmark, where 80% of the food served to seniors is organic.
In fact, feeding weakened people with reheated food is probably harmful.
Two experiments carried out with a coxsackievirus (Keshan’s disease), then with an influenza virus have shown that administered to mice deficient in selenium, these viruses acquire virulence and their mutants then affect even non-deficient mice. Ultimately, these neglected people, elders, minorities, homeless, could unwittingly take revenge.
The seniors of Haute-Gatineau were among the first to experience these dishes despite the protests of families. Food arrives from the hospital kitchen three times a week. In January 2021, in one of the CHSLDs, nine out of thirty-two residents died from COVID.
The fact that the decision to close the kitchens was taken when the Prime Minister and his Minister of Health were doctors shows that politics forces even informed people to make illogical decisions. Despite a change of party in 2018, kitchens are still being closed.
In Ottawa as in Quebec, we cut in health too often to spend elsewhere.
Are we going to find in Quebec one or a few members of the two parties responsible for the closures ready to commit to reopening the kitchens in order to properly feed their parents and grandparents?