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Letter writer says Ontario has 'moral duty' to examine long-term care issues during the provincial election campaign

The shortage of staffing for long-term care homes is believed to be the main concern
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An effort is underway to ensure that concerns about long-term care (LTC) homes will become a significant election issue as Ontario residents prepare to vote for a new provincial government on June 2. 

A recent letter to the editor by Terry Martyn of Sudbury spoke to the concern and said "as a society it is our moral duty to look back on the tragedy that occurred in our long-term care homes", a reference to the many deaths that occurred in the early weeks of the COVID-19 pandemic. Martyn is a co-chair of the Ontario North Family Councils Network, a group dedicated to improving the long-term care home experience 

Despite the pandemic, Martyn said concerns were being expressed about LTC homes well before the pandemic. He said in the last provincial election, in 2018, the councils network had meetings with candidates from both the Sudbury and Nickel Belt ridings to discuss issues that were relevant even back then. 

"The No. 1 problem at that time was shortage of staffing. So it was a staffing issue. And the number one problem today is still a staffing issue," said Martyn.

Martyn said the province does appear to be taking some steps in the right direction, but it is not enough.

"They are expanding and renovating the long-term care homes and they're adding like 30,000 new beds. If we already are in a crisis of shortage of staffing. Where is the plan to hire extra staff in order to provide the care for residents in these extra beds that they're building? It's not there," Martyn said.

"What we're asking for — and I think I mentioned that in one of my points in the letter — was a full provincial strategy to attract and retain staffing. Right now the government has just left it up to each home to try to go out there and find staff to fill those vacancies and that's not good enough. It has to be a province wide strategy," Martyn continued. 

Martyn added that after meeting with the candidates in 2018, the network did not take a stand endorsing one party or the other.

"No, we do not do that. The network is nonpartisan. We will work with whichever government, whichever party is in power, and runs the government. It's up to individuals to support whoever, whichever party they want, whichever candidate they want. So we make that very clear to the members on our network that we are nonpartisan. We are there to focus on long term care to improve the care of residents in each of the homes no matter where they are across the north," Martyn said.

He said the province needs to move in three distinct directions, one of them being the plan to attract and keep more staff. The other two issues are the need to create a whole new style of smaller home-like care facilities similar to what is done in Europe, and to bring back aggressive provincial oversight with appropriate penalties for non-compliance issues.

The letter is signed by Martyn, as co-chair of the Ontario North Family Councils Network, a role he said he shares with Jo-Anne McCool Maki of Sudbury. 

Len Gillis covers health care and mining for Sudbury.com.


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Len Gillis

About the Author: Len Gillis

Graduating from the Journalism program at Canadore College in the 1970s, Gillis has spent most of his career reporting on news events across Northern Ontario with several radio, television and newspaper companies. He also spent time as a hardrock miner.
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