Canadian bereavement support lacking 3 years into pandemic: research

There’s a lot that’s changed in our lives since the COVID-19 pandemic was first declared nearly three years ago, but there’s one area that could use some improvement, according to new research out of Simon Fraser University (SFU).

The study has discovered there is a desperate need for improved bereavement support to help people cope, not just with the loss of someone to the virus, but from anything whether it’s another illness or a car crash during the pandemic.

Soraya Janus is a Ph.D. candidate at the university’s School of Criminology. She’s also the lead author of this data and a researcher at SFU’s Centre for Forensic Research. She says the lack of support and dialogue around bereavement is problematic.

Related Articles:

• COVID-19 pandemic led to largest drop in Canadian life expectancy on record, data shows

• B.C. auditor general says there were gaps in COVID-19 vaccination information

“We’re hoping organizations will start to really understand the gravity of this issue,” explains Janus, adding the effects of the previous restrictions continue to linger. “We’ve had some participants say they still haven’t been able to mourn the loss of their loved one. In one particular case, it was a son. Not being able to return to their hometown.”

The World Health Organization (WHO) says more than 6.8 million people have died from COVID-19 in the past three years.

“Research says as one individual passes, you have at least nine bereaved and that’s on average,” says Janus. “So, just doing that math alone, you’re looking at about 62 million people who are bereaved, and one of the research papers we read as a team was looking at that silent grief and that prolonged and complicated grief that we’re seeing as a direct result of this pandemic.”

Janus suspects the lack of closure has already or will lead to an increase in people struggling with their mental health which could further weigh down an already fragile healthcare system.

“We’re still in it, we’re still trying to come to terms with our new normal and what that looks like for a lot of us. I think people will start really having that time to even start mourning. I don’t think people have had that opportunity to really have that experience,” she explained.

“Participants of ours shared rituals, religious ceremonies, didn’t happen. So, are we looking at celebration of lives that are happening now that didn’t happen three years ago? And are we going to be celebrating or getting through that mourning period three years delayed and what does that look like?”

She says some of the stories they’ve heard from people have been difficult.

“I was just speaking to someone who had mentioned that they had a loved one of theirs pass away and this individual was an ex-partner — the father of their child — but because they’re not longer together but they were still a huge part of their lives, their company didn’t acknowledge them as a direct relative, so they were denied leave. So, are we still going through an archaic system?”

Mar. 11, 2020, was when the WHO declared COVID a pandemic, and since then almost 760 million people around the world have been infected. In Canada, the organization says there have been more than 4.6 million cases and more than 51,000 deaths.