A crucial question we face as we start thinking beyond the pandemic is what systemic factors have contributed to worsening its impacts, and which ones have mitigated them. I have expressed earlier RNAO’s concerns that an excessive hospital orientation within the health system in Ontario, and the neglect of community-based approaches, is most likely a factor that has aggravated the impacts in our province. Today I am profiling the way that the Balearic Islands, a province of Spain, has tackled COVID-19 with an innovative primary care and home-based approach.

Today I am profiling one of the “forgotten,” but crucially important, health sectors: homecare. With hospitals geared to the pandemic, “decanting” less acute patients to their homes, and less able to attend to non-COVID conditions, homecare plays a central role in keeping persons in their homes and attending to their needs. However, like all community health services in our hospital-oriented health system, homecare is underfunded, neglected, and in pressing need of reform.