FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
October 3, 2006
Long Term Care Act
fails to give Ontarians promised revolution
The long wait for a Long Term
Care Act was hardly worth it, says the Ontario Public
Service Employees Union.
“This is hardly the
‘revolution’ the health minister promised us three years
ago,” says Leah Casselman, President of the Ontario Public
Service Employees Union. “Instead it’s mostly a
formalization of policies that have already been put in
place.”
OPSEU is upset that the new
Act fails to set minimum staffing standards for long term
care homes.
“The Ministry is trying to
legislate standards without putting in place the necessary
resources to meet those standards,” says Casselman.
Despite promising an
additional $6,000 per resident per year, the government has
only moved the funding benchmark by $2,000 per resident.
And much of the new long term
care funding has gone towards creating new beds, not
enhanced quality.
The union is urging the
government to amend the act and introduce a minimum staffing
standard of 3.5 hours of care per day per resident – a
recommendation widely agreed upon by labour organizations,
seniors’ advocacy groups, and the Ontario Health Coalition.
The union is also concerned
the act does little to stem the shift to for-profit beds in
the province.
More than half of Ontario’s
publicly supported long term care beds are in for-profit
homes – the highest in Canada. For-profit beds have been
linked in numerous studies to lower levels of staffing and
inferior health outcomes compared to not-for-profit and
public beds.
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For more information, contact
Don Ford at 416-443-8888 ext 7442.
