(May 28, 2020)<\/p>\n
By: The Review<\/p>\n
The Ontario Health Coalition\u00a0sent an open letter to Premier Doug Ford signed by family councils, health professionals, social organizations, cultural organizations, seniors\u2019 and retirees\u2019 groups, health coalitions, legal clinics, and many others who collectively represent more than 1.5 million Ontarians. The letter is below..<\/em><\/i>Ontario<\/p>\n 15 Gervais Drive, Suite 201, Toronto, Ontario M3C 1Y8 Tel: 416-441-2502 Email:\u00a0ohc@sympatico.ca\u00a0Web: www.ontariohealthcoalition.ca
\nOpen Letter to Premier Doug Ford
\nMay 28, 2020
\nDear Premier Ford,
\nWhile we are pleased that your government has committed to independence, non-partisanship and transparency with regards to the commission into long-term care and COVID-19, we are seeking some assurances regarding both this commission and the immediate measures needed that cannot wait for a commission. In addition, we believe that it is imperative that Ontario hold a full public commission or inquiry into the province\u2019s overall response to COVID-19, like the SARS Commission, as there are many lessons to be learned from this experience beyond the long-term care sector.
\nTo be clear, the Ontario Health Coalition called for the commission into long-term care to be under the Public Inquiry Act. You have voted against this in the Legislature. Failing that, Premier, we must state in the clearest possible terms that it will be unacceptable to the public if the commissioner(s) and any supporting staff are not fully independent of long-term care operators. Any long-term care commission must have unimpeachable credibility and operate in the public interest. This means it cannot be led or controlled by any partisan (political party) interests or by long-term care owners and operators. It must be transparent and open, not by invitation only. Access to the Commission must be equitable and it must allow for voices from families, residents, staff and their associations and unions, public interest groups and advocates who have worked closely on these issues. Care workers and professionals must be protected to speak on the record about conditions in the homes. Testimony and research must be on the record and fully available publicly as with formal commissions and inquiries in the past, and the commission must report as quickly as possible.
\nFurther, this commission cannot delay immediate action being taken to stabilize and support the workforce to stop the COVID-19 outbreaks that continue to spread in long-term care homes across significant parts of Ontario. We need a coherent plan from your government to stop the spread of COVID-19 in long-term care and retirement homes, including concrete measures to improve PPE supply, workplace safety and infection control, and to stabilize the workforce. We urgently need your government to take leadership and concrete coordination measures to immediately address critical staffing shortages that mean even basic daily care like feeding, bathing, hygiene, human contact are not able to be done; that palliative care needs are not being met; that care for the gravely ill is less than what is needed, as follows:
\n\u2022 Understaffing in long-term care is critical and must be addressed. The provincial government cannot rely on long-term care homes in crisis to get themselves out of crisis. There must be a coherent plan, led by our government, to step in with a set of coordinated, concrete measures to get staff into the homes that have lost staffing levels due to sickness, having to choose one part-time job, staff leaving etc. Leaving it to the providers to forge voluntary arrangements among themselves is not sufficient. Staff need a permanent improvement to their wages and access to full-time hours. This cannot be voluntary and there is no path to stability without the provincial government undertaking these measures. In addition to the permanent improvements to wages and access to full-time work, measures are needed while homes\u2019 operations remain under the emergency directives. Many staff have lost significant hours of work (and thus income) as a result of the requirement to choose one work site. They are risking their health and their families to go into the homes to do care work and the loss of hours is not offset by the pandemic pay increase. Yet some homes are bringing in PSW aides, nurses and others without giving their part-time staff any increase in hours. To address this, long-term care homes must be required to increase their pay for part-timers who have been required to give up part-time work in
\n15 Gervais Drive, Suite 201, Toronto, Ontario M3C 1Y8 Tel: 416-441-2502 Email:\u00a0ohc@sympatico.ca\u00a0Web: www.ontariohealthcoalition.ca
\nother homes to be equivalent to full-time pay and benefits, so as not to maintain the operator\u2019s economic incentive to limit the proportion of care delivered by full time staff. Further, the Minister of Long-Term Care must use her powers to revoke licences and appoint new management in long-term care homes that have uncontrolled outbreaks and evidence of negligence and poor practices.
\n\u2022 Infection control practices, workplace safety and access to PPE must be improved. Reusing surgical masks patient after patient, resident after resident, would have been totally unacceptable before COVID-19. Insufficient access to N95 masks continues to be a problem and there are shortages of other equipment. There needs to be a clear plan from the government to improve the supply of PPE or develop our own. Leaving it to industry to do voluntarily has so far been insufficient. Standards for infection control and workplace safety must be improved. Staff need the appropriate equipment, enough supply and training in order to comply with them. Staff who are infected must be supported to isolate at home. The directive allowing health care facilities to require staff to work who have tested positive for COVID-19 but are asymptomatic is dangerous and should be changed as should the loopholes that fail to stop agency staff from working at more than one location. Ongoing training and support for infection control regarding the use of PPE are needed. Testing of all residents and staff must be ongoing in long-term care homes, and completed in retirement homes and congregate care facilities (and shelters). Testing, tracking and isolating people who test positive is shown to have stopped the spread of COVID-19 in other countries. It must happen here. Access to PPE using the precautionary principle must be implemented in long-term care, hospitals, home care and across the health care system as soon as possible.
\n\u2022 Testing, contact tracing and isolation must be improved using our province\u2019s full public capacity. Public hospital laboratories that are not currently doing COVID-19 testing and have unused capacity should be ramping up testing. We need a clear honest plan from the provincial government that assesses our full capacity to test (including all the public hospitals, not just those that are currently testing) and immediately ramp up to our province\u2019s real full capacity the testing, tracking and isolating to stop the spread of COVID-19. There must be a coherent plan and immediate action to get the supply or develop it for testing kits, swabs and reagents, and transparency about what is happening with this. \u2022 Transfers to hospitals. Where there are long-term care homes in crisis without sufficient staff to provide proper palliative and end-of-life care, as well as being unable to address the general care requirements of the residents, residents should be considered for transfer to public hospitals, which are not in crisis, for safe and proper care, subject to their right to consent.
\n\u2022 Bring in family caregivers and volunteer nurses as soon as possible: As soon as testing\/contact tracing capacity and PPE supply are stabilized enough to do so, and as soon as training in infection control can be properly conducted, primary family caregivers need to be able to be involved as partners in their families\u2019 care. The pool of nurses that the RNAO has recruited to help should be utilized if they have not already been.
\n\u2022 Institute a minimum care standard in long-term care: There has been deep consensus for decades that the rising acuity (complexity and severity of the care needs) of long-term care residents requires more care. This cannot be left to operators to do on their own, and resources \u2014 both financial and human \u2014 need to be provided to support this. There cannot be further delay in beginning to move to a 4-hour average minimum care level for residents in long-term care to protect their safety and the safety of staff.
\nPremier, we are also deeply concerned about our research finding that the death rates in for-profit homes are significantly higher than in non-profit homes. It is imperative that your government halt any expansion of for-profit long-term care. We will follow up with your office regarding these issues and look forward to your response.
\nCordially,
\nNatalie Mehra Ross Sutherland
\nExecutive Director Chairperson
\nOntario Health Coalition
\nPlease see the following list of more than 100 organizations representing more than 1.5 million Ontarians that have signed onto this letter in support in the following pages.
\n15 Gervais Drive, Suite 201, Toronto, Ontario M3C 1Y8 Tel: 416-441-2502 Email:\u00a0ohc@sympatico.ca\u00a0Web: www.ontariohealthcoalition.ca
\nThe following organizations representing more than 1.5 million Ontarians have signed onto this letter in support:
\nARCH Disability Law Centre
\nAdvocacy Centre for the Elderly (ACE)
\nBowmanville Nurses Association
\nCanadian Association of Retired Persons (CARP)\u2013 Essex Chapter
\nCanadian Federation of University Women, Stratford
\nCanadian Office and Professional Employees Union (COPE) l. 96
\nCanadian Union of Public Employees Ontario (CUPE Ontario)
\n\u2013 CUPE l. 786
\n\u2013 CUPE Council (Niagara Region)
\n\u2013 CUPE l. 4207
\nCare Watch Ontario
\nCommittee on Monetary and Economic Reform (COMER) Kingston
\nCommunity Elder Abuse Prevention Committee of Thunder Bay
\nConcerned Friends of Ontario Citizens in Care Facilities
\nCongress of Union Retirees of Canada (CURC)
\n\u2013 South Central Ontario Branch
\n\u2013 Hamilton Burlington Oakville
\n\u2013 Thunder Bay
\n\u2013 Toronto and York Region Council
\nCouncil of Canadians
\n\u2013 Council of Canadians \u2013 Hamilton Chapter
\nCouncil on Monetary and Economic Reform (COMER) Kingston
\nDecent Work and Health Network
\nDownsview Community Legal Services
\nFamily Councils
\n\u2013 Algoma Family Council Coalition
\n\u2013 Cedarvale Lodge Retirement Community, Keswick
\n\u2013 Champlain Region Family Council Network
\n\u2013 Family Councils Collaborative Alliance (FCCA)
\n\u2013 Family Councils of Region 4 Advocacy Committee
\n\u2013 Grand Family Council for the City of Greater Sudbury
\n\u2013 John Noble Home, Brantford
\n\u2013 Linhaven Family Council, St Catharines
\n\u2013 Macassa Lodge, Hamilton
\n\u2013 North East Family Council Network
\n\u2013 Park Lane Terrace Nursing Home
\n\u2013 Shepherd Lodge Family Council
\n\u2013 Shalom Village
\n\u2013 St. Peter\u2019s Residence at Chedoke Family Council
\n\u2013 Village of Humber Heights
\nHamilton Community Legal Clinic
\nHealth Providers Against Poverty
\nImage Promotions Inc.
\nInterfaith Social Assistance Reform Coalition (ISARC)
\n15 Gervais Drive, Suite 201, Toronto, Ontario M3C 1Y8 Tel: 416-441-2502 Email:\u00a0ohc@sympatico.ca\u00a0Web: www.ontariohealthcoalition.ca
\nInternational Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAMAW)
\nInternational Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) l. 636
\nLatin American Canadian Solidarity Association
\nMunicipal Retirees Organization of Ontario (MROO)
\nNational Pensioners Federation
\nNetwork of Women with Disabilities (NOW)
\nNiagara Poverty Reduction Network
\nOntario Disability Support Program (ODSP) Action Coalition
\nOlder Women\u2019s Network (OWN)
\nOntario Council of Hospital Unions (OCHU)
\nOntario Health Coalition (OHC)
\n\u2013 Chatham-Kent Health Coalition
\n\u2013 Hamilton Health Coalition
\n\u2013 Kawartha Lakes Health Coalition
\n\u2013 Kingston Health Coalition
\n\u2013 London Health Coalition
\n\u2013 Niagara Health Coalition
\n\u2013 Ottawa Health Coalition
\n\u2013 Peel Health Coalition
\n\u2013 Sarnia Lambton Health Coalition
\n\u2013 Thunder Bay Health Coalition
\n\u2013 Toronto Health Coalition
\n\u2013 University of Toronto Health Coalition
\n\u2013 Sudbury Health Coalition
\n\u2013 Windsor Health Coalition
\n\u2013 Wallaceburg-Walpole Island Health Coalition
\nOntario Federation of Labour (OFL)
\n\u2013 Kingston and District Labour Council
\n\u2013 Lindsay and District Labour Council
\n\u2013 London and District Labour Council
\n\u2013 Niagara Regional Labour Council
\n\u2013 Peterborough and District Labour Council
\n\u2013 Windsor and District Labour Council
\nOntario Federation of Union Retirees (OFUR)
\nOntario Nurses\u2019 Association
\n\u2013 ONA l. 75
\nOntario Secondary School Teacher\u2019s Federation
\n\u2013 OSSTF \u2013 Association of Retired Members Chapter 11 Thames Valley
\n\u2013 OSSTF ARM Toronto (Chapter 12)
\n\u2013 OSSTF ARM Niagara (Chapter 22)
\nOxford Coalition for Social Justice
\nOxford County Voices for Education
\nPeel Poverty Action Group
\nPoverty Free Thunder Bay
\nProtecting ODSP OW Funding (POOF)
\n15 Gervais Drive, Suite 201, Toronto, Ontario M3C 1Y8 Tel: 416-441-2502 Email:\u00a0ohc@sympatico.ca\u00a0Web: www.ontariohealthcoalition.ca
\nRaging Grannies
\n\u2013 Toronto
\n\u2013 Ottawa
\nRalph Thornton Community Centre
\nRetired Teachers of Ontario (RTO) District 43 Nipissing
\nSeniors\u2019 Health Advisory Committee Sault Ste. Marie and Algoma District
\nShelter and Housing Justice Network
\nSocialist Project
\nSocial Justice Network of Antler River Watershed Region
\nSt. Athanasius Anglican Church Orillia
\nSteelworkers Organization of Active Retirees (SOAR)
\n\u2013 Chapter 80
\n\u2013 Chapter 16-6
\nStreet Nurses Network
\nThe Committee of Progressive Pakistani-Canadians
\nThunder Bay and District Injured Workers\u2019 Support Group
\nTrillium United Church Social Concerns and Outreach Team
\nUnifor
\n\u2013 Unifor l. 222
\n\u2013 Unifor l. 222 Retired Workers\u2019 Chapter
\n\u2013 Unifor l. 27
\nUnited Food & Commercial Workers (UFCW) l. 175 & l. 633
\nUnited Steelworkers (USW) District 6
\n\u2013 USW Toronto Council
\nVoice of the Elderly
\nWaterloo Regional Council of Retirees
\nWorker\u2019s Action Centre<\/p>\n