For more than a generation, Ontario’s approach to elder care has been on the wrong track and ignoring evidence about what people need and what works best. Long-term care facilities are in crisis across the country, documented in the Canadian Medical Association’s March 2021 study Pandemic Perspectives on Long-Term Care: Insights from Canadians in Light of COVID-19. It details shocking findings from the COVID-19 pandemic, concluding that older Canadians living in long-term care and retirement homes were 74 times more likely to die from COVID-19 than community-dwelling older Canadians.
The solution isn’t to build better run institutions, rather it means admitting that the model of warehousing the elderly is wrong. Evidence from around the world points to smaller, community centred solutions based on supporting people to age in place. It can’t be done overnight, but with 38,000 on LTC waiting lists, and with plans to redevelop or replace 30,000 LTC beds that don’t meet standards over the next 10 years, we need a plan that builds up in-home and community living supports. Most important, we cannot lose the opportunity to replace some deficient institutional care beds with community solutions. Seniors want solutions that bring them home to their communities rather than languishing in nursing homes.
Ask your candidates what they will do to:
- Make the shift from warehousing our elders in institutions to supporting them to live in home-like settings
- Ensure at least 50% of new LTC units are developed in smaller 4 – 20 unit clusters within local neighbourhoods
- Create a 10 year plan to phase out the 30,000 older sub-standard institutional beds and replace them with small scale community models
- Change the culture of elder care models to one rooted in the right to remain in the community to end of life
- Use community land trusts and local non-profits to create home-like supportive elder care models
A poster and questions for candidates can be found here.
