The province announced Wednesday that Ontario hospital patients waiting for places in long-term care can be transferred to nursing homes of their choosing that are up to 150 kilometers away, for a fee of $400 per day if they decline.
From next Wednesday, patients in southern Ontario can be moved up to 70 kilometers while patients in northern Ontario may be moved up to 150 kilometers, Health Minister Sylvia Jones and Long-Term Care Minister Paul Calandra said.
From November 20, hospitals will be required to charge a daily fee to patients who have been discharged from the hospital by their doctor and refuse to move into a home not of their choosing.
Jones said discharge planners will have to have “very difficult” conversations with patients about going to a home they don’t want to go to.
“Those conversations include, ‘Yes, we’ll need to charge you if you refuse to take the long-term care bed that we found for you,'” Jones told reporters.
“This part is, frankly, making sure that people understand that the hospital bed is for an acute patient, not for a long-term care patient.”
Ministers said the policy will only affect patients waiting to be discharged from hospital and whose long-term care homes are not available.
The changes will be reflected in the regulations for the new law, which have not yet been announced. As of Wednesday, few details were given about how the law would operate.
The county introduced legislation last month to allow hospitals to send a so-called alternative level of patient care to a long-term care home of their choice on a temporary basis.
The county said about 1,800 of those patients are currently in hospital waiting for a place in one of their five preferred options in a long-term care home.
The legislation sparked outrage
The bill, which passed through the legislature without public hearings, sparked outrage from elders and advocates.
The regulations announced Wednesday are part of an effort to free up hospital beds as the health care system struggles with temporary emergency room closures and a massive surgical backlog.
Hospital emergency departments across the county have been closed for hours or days in a row in recent months, in large part due to a nursing shortage.
Calandra said the distances will be calculated based on the patient’s preferred home location.
“This gives us maximum flexibility so that we can put on the table for patients in the hospital who want to transition to better quality care to long-term care more options available to them,” he said.
In northern Ontario, if there are no nursing homes available within 150 kilometers, legislation allows hospitals to look at the next closest home outside the border with empty beds.
Jones said patients who are transferred to homes they don’t want to go to will still be on the priority list for their preferred long-term care home.
Spouses will stay together and the government is working on a guiding document to respect religious, ethnic and linguistic preferences.
Calandra said First Nations homes will also be exempt.
The minister said a new law is designed to liberate the family
The median countywide length of stay in prehospital emergency departments is 20.7 hours, according to Health Ontario Data. Only 24 percent of patients are admitted to the hospital from emergency rooms within the target time of eight hours.
Jones said the new law would save hospital beds, but did not say how many or how it would affect emergency department waiting times.
“If we can handle a percentage of the alternative level of patient care in the province of Ontario, that will give us some flexibility and frankly, the ability to accept people sooner when these beds are available,” she said.
The National Party says the changes will put pressure on the elderly
Wayne Gates, a long-term care critic for the National Democratic Party, said the changes would put pressure on older adults and their caregivers.
“I think it’s very distressing to expect seniors and their families to travel 70 kilometers,” he said, referring to the distance patients spend in southern Ontario.
“Don’t force old people to be 70 kilometers away from their families. They need their families, they need their husbands.”
Calandra said they want to keep residents “as close as possible” to their favorite long-term care home.
Deposit Coordinators will select Long Term Care Homes within a radius of 70 km From the patient’s preferred location, except to the north, where the radius will be 150 km.
Green party leader says boycott punishes seniors
Mike Schreiner, the leader of the Ontario Green Party, said in a statement Wednesday that seniors should not be penalized for the province’s failure to invest in the health care system.
“It is wrong to force seniors to pay $12,000 a month if they refuse to go to an LTC home that is not of their choosing and away from the family,” Schreiner said.
“It is a shame that seniors are giving up on gas and leading them to believe the crisis in our hospitals is their fault. And keeping them away from loved ones and caregivers will actually exacerbate the employment crisis by putting more pressure on our already overworked PSW workers. LTC employees. Without Doubt, this will put the elderly at risk.”
Schreiner said the county government should do the following to treat people in long-term care with dignity:
- Make investments in home care, which will allow people to get care and age at home.
- Addressing the employment crisis, as the first step is to repeal Bill 124.
- Invest in non-profit long-term care homes across the county.
For Ontario liberals, interim leader John Fraser said the regulations would trample the rights of seniors.
“The greater the distance between you and families, the greater the hardship.”
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