{"id":11393,"date":"2020-05-02T13:47:41","date_gmt":"2020-05-02T17:47:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ontariohealthcoalition.ca\/?p=11393"},"modified":"2020-06-15T01:45:24","modified_gmt":"2020-06-15T05:45:24","slug":"demands-grow-louder-in-ontario-to-end-for-profit-nursing-homes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ontariohealthcoalition.ca\/index.php\/demands-grow-louder-in-ontario-to-end-for-profit-nursing-homes\/","title":{"rendered":"Demands grow louder in Ontario to end for-profit nursing homes"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>(May 1, 2020)<\/p>\n<p>By:\u00a0Zaid Noorsumar, Rankandfile.ca<\/p>\n<p>The Ontario Health Coalition is holding an online Day of Action today, May 1, to demand the Ontario PC government and Premier Doug Ford fix long-term care. The hashtag #FixLTCFord is being used by the Coalition and its supporters on Twitter and other social media platforms.<\/p>\n<p>In addition to demanding the elimination of for-profit nursing homes, the OHC is demanding immediate improvements to PPE access, permanent improvement in wages and working conditions, implementation of a 4-hour minimum care standard, and improved infection control.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Premier\u2019s words don\u2019t match actions<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Conditions in nursing homes have been deadly. Over 160 facilities in Ontario are reporting outbreaks and <span style=\"color: #3366ff;\"><a style=\"color: #3366ff;\" href=\"https:\/\/www.ontario.ca\/page\/how-ontario-is-responding-covid-19#section-0\">hundreds of deaths<\/a><\/span>.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhile measures that have been announced by the provincial government are welcome and sincerely appreciated, still there remains a dangerous disconnect between what the Premier has said he is going to do and the actual policy measures undertaken by his government,\u201d says Natalie Mehra, executive director of the Ontario Health Coalition.<\/p>\n<p>While acknowledging some improved access to COVID-19 testing, Mehra reports testing is still lacking in for staff and residents at homes with outbreaks.<\/p>\n<p>The $4\/hour wage enhancement for staff is an improvement, <span style=\"color: #3366ff;\"><a style=\"color: #3366ff;\" href=\"https:\/\/rabble.ca\/news\/2019\/12\/personal-support-worker-shortage-plaguing-ontario-nursing-homes\">but already low<\/a><\/span> staffing levels have only worsened. And when the Ontario government mandated staff only work in a single home to contain the spread of COVID-19, workers were not guaranteed full-time hours.<\/p>\n<p>There has been improved access to PPE, but the Ontario Health Coalition says some homes are still not compliant with provincial guidelines and should be penalized accordingly.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe provincial government has not used its legislated powers to revoke licenses of the homes with the most egregious practices and to appoint management to take over the homes,\u201d Mehra said.<\/p>\n<p>Mehra says the government lacks initiative in finding permanent solutions, and calls on the Ford government to implement a minimum staffing standard of four hours of direct care.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThere is total consensus that residents, families and staff alike need a regulated, enforced minimum care standard of an average of 4-hours of care per day in order to protect residents and staff from inadequate care, high rates of violence and injury,\u201d Mehra said.\u00a0That consensus does not include the for-profit lobby, the Ontario Long-Term Care Association.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Healthcare unions endorse Day of Action\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Several major health care unions are endorsing the Day of Action and the Ontario Health Coalition\u2019s demands, including the elimination of <span style=\"color: #3366ff;\"><a style=\"color: #3366ff;\" href=\"https:\/\/www.cbc.ca\/radio\/thesundayedition\/the-sunday-edition-for-april-26-2020-1.5536429\/canada-s-for-profit-model-of-long-term-care-has-failed-the-elderly-says-leading-expert-1.5540891\">for-profit ownership of nursing homes<\/a><\/span>.<\/p>\n<p>Unifor, the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE), the Ontario Public Service Employees Union (OPSEU), the Ontario Nurses\u2019 Association (ONA) and Labourers\u2019 International Union of North America (LiUNA) Local 3000 pledged their support for the action.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAs the crisis in long term care takes hold with terrible results, it is an opportunity to face the future with a commitment to push for-profit operators out of this sector and to increase staffing levels,\u201d said Michael Hurley, President of CUPE\u2019s Ontario Council of Hospital Unions.<\/p>\n<p>Vicky McKenna, president of the Ontario Nurses\u2019 Association, said that her union has been advocating for safer working conditions and higher quality of care for decades.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cONA has seen crisis after crisis in this sector and the fix never seems to come,\u201d she said, noting that intra-resident and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.rankandfile.ca\/breaking-point-violence-in-long-term-care\/\"><span style=\"color: #3366ff;\">resident-to-staff violence<\/span><\/a>, understaffing and underfunding have remained unresolved issues.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Response from opposition parties<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Teresa Armstrong, the long-term care critic of the Ontario NDP, said the official opposition backs the demands put forward by the Ontario Health Coalition.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cFor years, the NDP has been ringing the alarm about Ontario\u2019s chronically underfunded and understaffed long-term care sector,\u201d said Armstrong, whose party has tabled a minimum care standard legislation multiple times.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSince the pandemic hit, it\u2019s clearer than ever that we can never go back to the broken, underfunded patchwork system that failed to protect people.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><em>Rankandfile.ca<\/em> also reached out to the Ontario Liberal Party, which did not explicitly state its support for the Day of Action.<\/p>\n<p>In a statement via email, the Liberal Party responded, \u201cThe Ontario Liberal Party has been pushing the government to ensure proper access to PPE for all PSWs and healthcare workers. We called for a wage top up weeks ago and have asked for it to be retroactive to the first date of the pandemic.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>As has previously been noted by <em>Rankandfile.ca<\/em>, the last Liberal government (2003-2018) failed to establish a minimum care standard, and didn\u2019t address fundamental problems in the sector including corporatization of nursing homes.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.rankandfile.ca\/end-for-profit-nursing-homes-in-ontario\/?fbclid=IwAR2SH7t63q46yZn-mM-FqiZEWecVgd4H5ny4Ub4AR8nmV19GpWbQXVSJ5PY\"><span style=\"color: #3366ff;\">Click here for original article<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>(May 1, 2020) By:\u00a0Zaid Noorsumar, Rankandfile.ca The Ontario Health Coalition is holding an online Day of Action today, May 1, to demand the Ontario PC government and Premier Doug Ford fix long-term care. The hashtag #FixLTCFord is being used by the Coalition and its supporters on Twitter and other social media platforms. In addition to [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11393","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ohc-in-the-news"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.5 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Demands grow louder in Ontario to end for-profit nursing homes - Ontario Health Coalition<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"(May 1, 2020) By:\u00a0Zaid Noorsumar, Rankandfile.ca The Ontario Health Coalition is holding an online Day of Action today, May 1, to demand the Ontario PC\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.ontariohealthcoalition.ca\/index.php\/demands-grow-louder-in-ontario-to-end-for-profit-nursing-homes\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Demands grow louder in Ontario to end for-profit nursing homes - 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