Ontario considering moving seniors up to 300km away due to bed shortages: sources
Posted August 25, 2022 12:07 pm.
Last Updated August 25, 2022 7:19 pm.
The Ontario government is considering transferring hospitalized seniors in northern Ontario to long-term care homes up to 300 kilometres away from their hometowns due to bed shortages, sources tell CityNews.
Outside of the northern regions, the proposed limit would be 100 kilometres, and in a city, it would drop to 30 kilometres, the sources say.
When pressed, Doug Ford’s government told CityNews on Thursday that those travel guideline numbers have not yet been decided, but they are a “starting point.”
Consultations remain underway, the government says, and the north may not even be included when the official distances are announced.
RELATED: Seniors, advocates, slam new law that could force patients to long-term care homes
Last week the province introduced legislation to allow the movement of patients to long-term-care beds outside of their communities in an effort to help stabilize the overburdened healthcare system.
The Canadian Press reported on Thursday that the Ford government is planning to bypass public hearings in order to quickly pass the legislation.
An eldercare doctor in Toronto tells CityNews in an interview that one of his patients told him he’d “rather be dead” than go to a long-term home he’s not interested in.
Dr. Samir Sinha with Sinai Health says he’s concerned that patients won’t seek the help they need because they don’t want to be sent to a long-term care home away from their communities and families.
“There is a lot of fear and terror,” Dr. Sinha said.
“A lot of my patients are now saying to me that they don’t want to go on a list or go to a hospital if the end result is being placed in a home that they don’t want to be part of.”
A senior government source confirmed with CityNews last week that if a doctor says a patient no longer needs a hospital bed and should be in long-term care, that patient can be moved to an available bed, even if it is further away from where they want to be.
Premier Doug Ford addressed the speculation during Question Period at Queen’s Park.
“The opposition wants people who should be in long-term care, in hospital beds,” Ford said. “Hospital beds weren’t made for long-term care patients. What’s happening is it’s clogging up emergency departments.”
“We’re parading our own problems”
According to the provincial government, close to 2,000 people are currently in hospitals waiting for a long-term care bed, and the wait list could last months.
“These amendments, if passed. Will make it easier to temporarily transition these patients into a long-term care home where they can receive more appropriate care,” long-term care minister Paul Calandra said last Thursday.
Dr. Sinha compares Ontario’s situation to a country like Denmark, which doesn’t have this problem. He says the reason that so many of his patients end up on LTC wait lists is that they don’t have enough home care being provided.
“This is why we’re actually parading our own problems. Instead of fixing our problems, we’re just calling the problem older people, calling them ‘bed lockers,'” Dr. Sinha said. “They’re saying, ‘you know what, you have to free up this bed so other people can use it.'”
Calandra added that a patient could say no to a transfer outside of their area, and no one would be forced to move. However, it’s not clear what would happen if a patient refused to be moved.
“We are not going to be forcing anyone out of a home,” Calandra said.
“But the changes do allow us to continue that conversation, to explain to someone in a hospital why their needs could be met in a long-term care home.”
With files from Michael Ranger, John Marchesan and The Canadian Press
