(June 21, 2016)<\/p>\n
By: James Matthews, Orangeville Banner<\/p>\n
There\u2019s a glaring need for minimum care standards at long-term care facilities, according to the Ontario Health Coalition.<\/p>\n
The coalition situated a 10-foot tall wooden rocking chair on Orangeville\u2019s Broadway near Blind Line on Saturday (June 18). It was part of a 19-town tour designed to increase awareness about the need to improve care standards at Ontario\u2019s long-term care facilities. Indeed, the chair itself was a metaphor for good old fashioned attentive care.<\/p>\n
Peter Boyle, a volunteer with the coalition\u2019s tour, said the effort brings attention to the need to address long wait-times and poor access to care.<\/p>\n
Boyle said there are about 80,000 long-term care beds in Ontario. There\u2019s as many as 20,000 people on waiting lists for one of those beds. And, Boyle said, that\u2019s just to get into a facility that won\u2019t necessarily be in the patient\u2019s home community. That would mean the patient\u2019s family members would need to travel to another community and, as family members are crucial to the current care levels, that would leave patients in greater need.<\/p>\n
He said the 20,000-patient wait list is an historic number that\u2019s likely changed in the years since it was first tallied. Yet beds are cut every year at facilities and hospitals throughout the province, he said.<\/p>\n
Affordability is also an issue, and that\u2019s reflected in the need to protect public non-profit health care against growing privatization within the sector.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe acuity of care that\u2019s needed is more than it was 15 years ago,\u201d Boyle said.<\/p>\n
Care needs grow each year. Hospital cuts mean patients with complex medical needs are off-loaded into long-term care homes that are already ill equipped to meet patients\u2019 needs. Complex patients with dementia and other behavioral issues are turned over from hospitals to long-term care homes. But, he said, care levels have not increased to meet those heavier and more complex patient needs.<\/p>\n
Boyle said one of the trusses of the coalition\u2019s campaign is a minimum standard of four hours of hands-on care, or \u201ctouch-time\u201d, in every 24-hour period for patients.<\/p>\n
Long-term care centres are caring mainly for members of the war generation, Boyle said. And that population will intensify in an ageing population.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s just the tip of the iceberg with what\u2019s coming,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s paramount to address the health-care shortfalls now in anticipation of meeting Baby Boomer needs.<\/p>\n
There are legislated standards of care for schools and day care centres, he said. But such regulations for long-term care facilities don\u2019t exist.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey have them (regulations) for everything else,\u201d Boyle said. \u201cWhen it comes to the elderly, they\u2019re forgotten.\u201d<\/p>\n
Tom Caruthers, another coalition volunteer, said nursing staff at many long-term care facilities are saddled with duties that cause the important work of caring to be minimized. Current facility staff can only do so much in the hours they have.<\/p>\n
\u201cPaper work is not care time,\u201d said Caruthers. \u201cIt\u2019s bureaucracy time.\u201d<\/p>\n