{"id":19568,"date":"2022-09-15T22:13:34","date_gmt":"2022-09-16T02:13:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ontariohealthcoalition.ca\/?p=19568"},"modified":"2022-10-22T22:14:46","modified_gmt":"2022-10-23T02:14:46","slug":"ford-government-will-charge-400-a-day-for-long-term-care-patients-who-wont-leave-hospital","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ontariohealthcoalition.ca\/index.php\/ford-government-will-charge-400-a-day-for-long-term-care-patients-who-wont-leave-hospital\/","title":{"rendered":"Ford government will charge $400 a day for long-term-care patients who won\u2019t leave hospital"},"content":{"rendered":"

(September 14, 2022)<\/p>\n

By: Rob Ferguson, Toronto Star<\/p>\n

Young or old, staying in hospital if you\u2019re cleared for discharge to available care elsewhere could cost you $400 a day as the Ontario government tries to free up beds for the expected fall and winter surge of COVID-19<\/a> and flu.<\/p>\n

And seniors can be moved to nursing homes not of their choosing as far as 70 kilometres away in southern Ontario \u2014 or 150 kilometres in the north \u2014 to wait for a bed at their preferred long-term care facility closer to home and loved ones.<\/p>\n

Those details came Wednesday as Premier Doug Ford\u2019s<\/a> government fleshed out a controversial law passed two weeks ago<\/a> to ease emergency room overcrowding, long waits for beds and surgeries in hospitals by getting more people \u2014 mainly seniors \u2014 out of them and into nursing homes, home care, community care or rehabilitation centres.<\/p>\n

\u201cAcute care hospital beds need to be for acute care patients,\u201d Health Minister Sylvia Jones said after regulations on hospital billing and distances to nursing homes were released for Bill 7, the More Beds, Better Care Act.<\/a><\/p>\n

The legislation was introduced and passed in 13 days last month without public hearings or study by a legislative committee of MPPs, with Long-Term Care Minister Paul Calandra repeatedly insisting \u201cthe status quo is not an option.\u201d Ford did not mention it during the June 2 election campaign.<\/p>\n

Critics called the regulations a \u201ccruel scheme\u201d that will coerce hospital patients into going to places they don\u2019t want to go \u2014 possibly nursing homes with high death and illness rates in the pandemic \u2014 or far from spouses and family members who may have difficulty visiting them because of long distances.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s wrong,\u201d said New Democrat MPP Wayne Gates (Niagara Falls), his party\u2019s long- term care critic. \u201cThose seniors are going to die a lot sooner \u2026 than if they were closer to home.\u201d<\/p>\n

Caregiver advocate Vivian Stamatopoulos said the long distances are akin to putting the vulnerable elderly in \u201csolitary confinement\u201d away from their families, which proved detrimental during the worst months of COVID when visits were restricted.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt just shows how little our minister seems to understand what long-term care is about.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

A frail senior, for example, could be moved from a Toronto hospital to a nursing home in Hamilton. In northern Ontario, the move could be from Sudbury to North Bay, a distance of 127 kilometres with the added complication of winter weather approaching.<\/p>\n

\u201cNow we\u2019re putting a burden on seniors and their families,\u201d said interim Liberal Leader John Fraser. \u201cFor those families it\u2019s going to create hardship.\u201d<\/p>\n

The $400 fees begin Nov. 20; the nursing home moves kick off on Sept. 21. Ford had mused last month that hospital fees for uninsured care, such as $1,800 daily at Toronto General, were too high. Jones said Wednesday that the $400 was set to provide \u201cconsistency\u201d across the province.<\/p>\n

It will also provide an incentive for people to leave hospitals when they no longer need acute care, Jones said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe believe it is enough of a concern for people to have those challenging conversations with the placement co-ordinators, to make the effort, as a family, to have the conversations about where do we want our loved ones as they travel through their next journey.\u201d<\/p>\n

But a danger in the law is that it gives hospitals new powers to assess patients awaiting long-term care without their consent and share their personal information with nursing homes without their consent, which is \u201cviolating\u201d the rights of the elderly, said the Ontario Health Coalition.<\/p>\n

Green Leader Mike Schreiner said seniors are paying the price for Ford\u2019s failure to fulfil a 2018 campaign promise to eliminate \u201challway health care\u201d in hospitals.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m calling on the government to stop gaslighting seniors into thinking they\u2019re the ones to blame for the government\u2019s own mismanagement of the health-care system and the overcrowding in our hospitals.\u201d<\/p>\n

Calandra said moves to nursing homes could be further away than 150 kilometres in the north, where there are fewer nursing homes to choose from.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf there is no appropriate bed available within the 150 kilometres then they can look at the first available bed outside of that 150 kilometre range,\u201d he told reporters.<\/p>\n

\u201cDon\u2019t forget, it\u2019s not just about finding a home that\u2019s available. It\u2019s about finding a home that is an appropriate home for the person that is being discharged from the hospital.\u201d<\/p>\n

Calandra and Jones pledged that \u201ccouples will be kept together\u201d and moves will \u201crespect religious, ethnic and language preferences.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fuelled by the pandemic, the number of patients in hospital who no longer need acute care \u2014 and who are called alternate level of care (ALC) patients \u2014 has risen by 1,000<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

in recent months to 6,000, resulting in temporary emergency room closures in some hospitals and crowded conditions across the sector.<\/p>\n

Almost 2,000 of the ALC patients are seniors waiting for long-term care beds, for which there are long waiting lists.<\/p>\n

The pressure to move patients out of hospitals into nursing homes will make it tougher<\/a> for seniors living in the community, particularly those experiencing a health crisis, to get beds in nursing homes that are experiencing the same types of staffing shortages that hospitals are facing, the Ontario Long-Term Care Association has warned.<\/p>\n

Link to original article<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

(September 14, 2022) By: Rob Ferguson, Toronto Star Young or old, staying in hospital if you\u2019re cleared for discharge to available care elsewhere could cost you $400 a day as the Ontario government tries to free up beds for the expected fall and winter surge of COVID-19 and flu. And seniors can be moved to […]<\/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-19568","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ohc-in-the-news"],"yoast_head":"\nFord government will charge $400 a day for long-term-care patients who won\u2019t leave hospital - Ontario Health Coalition<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"(September 14, 2022) By: Rob Ferguson, Toronto Star Young or old, staying in hospital if you\u2019re cleared for discharge to available care elsewhere could\" \/>\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\/ford-government-will-charge-400-a-day-for-long-term-care-patients-who-wont-leave-hospital\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Ford government will charge $400 a day for long-term-care patients who won\u2019t leave hospital - 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