TORONTO—Ontario’s nursing homes were woefully unprepared for the onslaught of COVID-19—the culmination of years of neglect and failure to address known problems, the province’s auditor general said on Wednesday. In a special report, Bonnie Lysyk took aim at overcrowding, poor ministry oversight, and a severe staffing shortage that existed even before the pandemic struck. Both the provincial government and nursing-home sector had failed to heed lessons learned from the SARS epidemic, while concerns raised repeatedly for years went unaddressed, her report said. “Long-standing systemic problems in the sector were quickly and starkly amplified at the onset and during the first and second waves of the pandemic,” Lysyk said. “Neither the Ministry of Long-Term Care nor the long-term-care sector was sufficiently positioned, prepared or equipped to respond to the issues created by the pandemic in an effective and expedient way.” COVID-19 hit Ontario’s long-term care homes with brutal effect last spring. …