Concerns about the level of care provided in long-term care homes in Ontario have been an issue at Queen's Park for many years.
A search of online Legislature debates shows that issues have been raised by numerous Members of Provincial Parliament going back decades.
In a lot of cases, the concerns raised were about such things as wait lists and a lack of beds at nursing homes — which in turn caused overcrowding and hallway health care in hospitals, where vulnerable seniors ended up — as well as not enough funding for additional staff.
The amount of the daily food allowance provided to nursing homes has also been a point of contention.
The level of care became an issue for former Ontario NDP leader Howard Hampton in the final days of the 2007 provincial election campaign. Hampton was frustrated that the provincial media was reporting on things such a faith-based education.
You can watch Hampton’s off-the-cuff speech below.
He lashed out at one point, reminding reporters that there were senior citizens confined to nursing homes that often had to endure the discomfort of soiled diapers for long periods of time.
"Don't you care about that?” he shouted during one news conference.
It wasn't just on the campaign trail.
In 2017, it was revealed the per capita cost of food for long-term care homes was allocated at $8.33 cents a day in 2016. Why was this a revelation? Because it didn’t take long for the dollar figure to be compared to another dollar figure: that of inmates in Ontario correctional facilities who, it was revealed, were provided $9.73 a day for meals, more than a $1 more than long-term care residents were receiving.
The province eventually bumped the food budget up to $9 a day for long-term care homes, but not until a year later. In 2018, that amount was raised to $9.54 according to figures provides by Ontario Long-Term Care Association.
In 1991, MPP David Allen Tilson (PC, Dufferin Peel) petitioned the government to equalize funding between government-funded nursing homes and privately run homes, suggesting many were in a financial crunch and about to be bankrupt.
Also that year, MPP Barbara Sullivan (Liberal, Halton Centre) brought forth a petition asking the caregiver-to-patient ratio be changed. In many homes, there was only one caregiver for every 12 residents.
Sullivan wanted that chanted to one care giver for every six residents.
Another issue raised in recent years saw MPP France Gélinas (NDP, Nickel Belt) expressing concern that many seniors on the waitlist for long-term beds were often forced to move away from their home community — away from family members and friends — if they wanted to get into a long-term care home.
Ontario should allow for long-term care homes to be set up in smaller communities so that seniors would not be forced to leave their loved ones, Gelinas said in November 2017. She said this was indeed a problem in many parts of Northern Ontario.
Fifteen years earlier, in June of 2002 MPP GIlles Bisson (NDP, Timmins-James Bay) spoke on the same issue.
"Certain communities like Timmins are hard-pressed to have some of their residents placed in an institution of their choice. Sometimes the only option available to them is to be placed in Iroquois Falls or Kapuskasing, or even North Bay in some cases. I don't think that is a viable option for seniors who need to be around their families," Bisson told the legislature.
The long and the short of it is issues inside Ontario’s long-term care homes aren’t a new problem; they are an issue that stretches back decades and across successive governments.
