Gates slams Ford’s part-time LTC Minister on scheme to move seniors far from home

QUEENS PARK — In question period Monday, Official Opposition critic for Long Term Care, NDP MPP Wayne Gates (Niagara Falls), slammed Premier Doug Ford’s part-time Long Term Care minister’s scheme to move seniors to long-term care homes far from home that they don’t want to go to.

The bill, which has been widely criticized by long-term care advocates, contains provisions which would allow for seniors to be moved to private care beds in homes with dubious records of care.

“Cruel doesn’t even begin to describe the Ford government’s plan for seniors,” said Gates. “Their new bill gives them the power to send patients’ personal information to a private care home without their consent, to discharge them from the hospital, and to pack them up and send them to a long-term care bed far from home, even if they don’t want to go. Informed consent is a cornerstone of modern medicine and health care — this scheme undermines that right.”

The Ford government’s bill has been criticized by the Ontario Health Coalition for provisions which do not require patients' consent. Gates points out that hospital discharge planners have always had the ability to have conversations with residents discussing a move to long-term care — this bill undermines consent and authorizes new pressure tactics to force seniors to move when and where they don’t want to.

“Do you know which homes are most likely to have open beds? They are private, for-profit long-term-care homes with terrible records of abuse and no air conditioning in their rooms. Today, there are still 79 care homes that have no air conditioning. It’s cruel to coerce a senior to move there,” said Gates.

Gates and the NDP will vote against the bill, and are calling instead of proper resourcing of the health care and long-term care system.