Nickel Belt MPP France Gélinas said she is fighting hard to stop the Ontario Government from moving forward with a new health care bill, Bill 7, and she believes a lot of "card-carrying Conservatives'' now agree with her.
Gélinas spoke out in the Ontario legislature Wednesday to argue that Bill 7, which includes the new proposal to improve long-term care (LTC) in Ontario, will not be helpful at all if elderly and chronic care patients are forced out of hospitals and into LTC homes against their wishes.
During the debate in the house, Gélinas argued that a person getting hospital care can be pushed out and sent to an LTC home if that patient is deemed to be ready for it.
"But this bill takes away consent. First, it used to be that once you finished your active treatment in a hospital, a physician had to assess you to see if you meet the criteria to be transferred into a long-term-care home," she said.
The new bill changes that, Gélinas said by allowing a broad range of health care professionals — everyone from doctors and nurses to care co-ordinators and social workers — would be allowed to do the assessment.
"Not only are they allowed to assess you without your consent, they’re allowed to access your personal health information and they’re allowed to share that personal health information with the long-term-care home of their choosing," Gélinas explained.
She said this is not what most elderly and chronic patients want. Gélinas said the government is determined to push the changes through because of the fear that a new wave of the COVID-19 pandemic will hit Ontario this fall.
Gélinas said she has been in contact with many elderly people including members of CARP (Canadian Association of Retired Persons) who she said are not comfortable with being sent to live in a LTC home.
In the past two and a half years and after seeing so many COVID deaths, Gélinas said attitudes have changed and the pendulum is swinging away from blanket support for the government. People are now reluctant to be pushed to a nursing home. They want their loved ones to live at home and get specialized care at home.
"So the demand for change is coming from a demographic that has a lot of influence on the Conservatives," Gélinas said.
"There are lots of card carrying Conservatives that are elderly Ontarians. And they are becoming more and more vocal, saying we want to be supported in our home. And in order to do this, we want home care and the solutions for home care have been known for a very, very long time," she said.
Gélinas said the province has to make changes that will allow personal support workers (PSWs) to commit to working full-time in the health and home care industry. She said this would involve paying a sustainable full-time salary along with appropriate benefits, so that the job would be more attractive to people who have trained for it.
Gélinas said Ontario has hundreds of qualified PSWs who trained for the job but decided to quit because of poor pay and poor working conditions.
Len Gillis covers health care and mining for Sudbury.com.
