Mira Vid was abandoned at birth in her native Croatia in the 1930s, escaped Communist Yugoslavia to come to Canada in 1967 and subsequently survived cancers of the colon, kidney, liver, bladder, ovaries and skin.

The former TD Bank accountant and grandmother of two died of COVID-19 last Wednesday at the Salvation Army’s Meighen Manor long-term-care home in midtown Toronto. Vid was 85.

“She survived all of those cancers,” said her daughter Kokie Fiand, 58. “She would say cut it out of me, I want to go on. But COVID was the end of her.”

Staff at the care home “did their best,” Fiand said Sunday. But she and her husband, Joachim Ravoth, are joining a chorus of family members, seniors’ advocates and experts who say chronic underfunding, poorly paid staff and lack of oversight in Canada’s long-term-care system have left homes like Meighen Manor severely ill prepared for the pandemic.

“We blame the system,” Fiand said.

The home on Millwood Road, near Yonge Street and Davisville Avenue, is the latest seniors facility in the city to report a serious outbreak of COVID-19, with 50 confirmed cases and 10 deaths in the 168-bed residence.

Fourteen staff members have also tested positive for the coronavirus and are self-isolating at home, executive director Julie Wong said in a letter to family members on Saturday. She did not respond to a request for an interview.

“We are deeply saddened to share this unfortunate news but would like to reassure you that the health and safety of our residents, staff and their families remain the top priority of the Salvation Army,” Wong said in the letter.

Other long-term-care homes in Toronto with significant outbreaks include Eatonville Care Centre in Etobicoke, with 111 confirmed cases and 30 deaths as of Friday; city-run Seven Oaks in Scarborough, with 97 confirmed cases and 21 deaths; and Scarborough’s Altamont Care Community, with 87 cases and 12 deaths, according to the city’s COVID-19 website.

As of Friday, there were 929 confirmed cases of the virus and 102 deaths related to COVID-19 in Toronto long-term-care facilities, retirement homes and hospitals, the city’s website shows.

“Outbreaks of COVID-19 in long-term-care homes and retirement homes are a particular area of concern for Toronto Public Health,” said Dr. Vinita Dubey, Toronto’s associate medical officer of health. The city expects to see more cases in the coming weeks with increased testing, she added in an email.

The Salvation Army home partnered with Sunnybrook Hospital last week to expedite COVID-19 testing of all residents and staff within Meighen Manor as a precaution, Wong said in her letter to families.

The home has implemented all recommended infection control policies and protocols, including requiring all residents to self-isolate in their rooms with meal delivery, she said. All staff have access to personal protective equipment and are required to wear masks in resident areas. Staff are being asked to work in just one home and are screened daily for symptoms. And the home has boosted cleaning and sanitation efforts, especially of high-touch surfaces such as handrails, door handles and furniture surfaces, Wong added.

“Our thoughts and prayers go out to all impacted residents, staff and their loved ones during this extremely difficult and unprecedented time,” she said.

Fiand and Ravoth said they wished the home had acted more quickly.

“Residents were eating together in the dining room with staff coming and going to other homes while we were all self-isolating,” Fiand said, describing the situation in the facility in mid-March, when her mother first developed a fever and cough.

“Staff had no masks or gloves. Residents were sitting side by side in the TV room. Everybody was coughing and there was no effort to separate people,” she said.

Her mother waited a week to be tested and still had no results when her fever spiked on April 9 and Fiand urged the home to take her to a hospital. She tested positive, but doctors advised against putting her on a ventilator because they said “she will only suffer more.”

“We were advised to send her back to the home with morphine and meds until she passes,” Fiand said. “It was very difficult.”

Vid will be cremated this week and Fiand said she will keep her ashes for a celebration of life when the crisis is over because “my mom loved music and dancing.”

Fiand said she will remember her mother as “a fighter.”

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When the family came to Canada — Fiand was six and her sister Sanja was eight — her mother was determined to learn English and integrate, she said. She got a job at TD and was always the breadwinner. Fiand’s father, Costa Mijatovic, who died seven years ago at age 92, was a taxi driver.

Her mother, who had been at Meighen Manor for about six years “because her legs gave out,” used a wheelchair and had some memory issues but was “not sickly,” Fiand said.

“I want people to be aware that nursing homes are not safe places for seniors,” she said.