Thread by @DrVivianS

🧵Previously, ALC patients chose 5 PREFERRED #LTC homes they would go to. Bill 7 works to enable a situation I describe below, where our most vulnerable can be charged US-style hospital fees for merely waiting for a safe and appropriate #LTC facility.

It is downright cruel.

https://twitter.com/NatashaFatah/status/1563581117864693761

Before, you couldn't be forced to pay the UNINSURED hospital rate if you turned down an LTC that was not among your top 5.

Now, they're enabling hospitals to "continue the conversation" by effectively threatening to bankrupt them if they don't take the first bed available.

So they say there's "choice", but we all know threatening our most financially & medically vulnerable seniors (30.5% of which live in poverty in ON) w/ EXHORBITANT bills will force them to take the bad option presented to them simply because they cannot afford to wait it out.

Furthermore, since older women living alone are 3x more likely to live in poverty, this is further targeting female seniors (who are also the majority of LTC residents to begin with because of this).

LTC residents are known to be lower-income. The RICH never use LTC.

They pay for round the clock private care for their loved ones so they can age at home or send them to Retirement Homes costing 10,000+ a month.

LTC HAS ALWAYS BEEN FOR OUR MOST FINANCIALLY VULNERABLE TO START WITH & NOW @PaulCalandra IS KICKING THEM WHILE THEY ARE ALREADY DOWN.

Finally. I could not answer the question of what better can be done now because sadly this government squandered their time and didn't do the things they needed over the last 3 years to help fix #LTC.

What COULD they have done, you ask?

1. Implement the 4hr (which should be 5-7 based on latest research, FYI) NOW so to force bad actors to hire staff. Had they done this last year, we wouldn't be in such terrible shape today.

2. Provide proper pay, training & working conditions for LTC staff so they don't constantly leave in the never-ending revolving door of workers.

3. ACTUALLY PENALIZE BAD ACTORS AND REVOKE LICENSES OF BAD ACTORS WHO REPEATEDLY BREAK THE LAW.

4. Make an immediate commitment to NO LONGER FUND #FORPROFIT LTC given the CLEAR AND IRREFUTABLE EVIDENCE of their failure during #COVID19 (and well before).

5. To help blunt ONGOING OUTBREAKS PLAGUING LTC (there are 167 LTCs in outbreak RIGHT NOW), mandate N95 use at all times)

6. Deal with AC AND AIR QUALITY in these facilities (HEPAS etc.,)

7. Mandate IPAC leads for each LTC and mandate daily RAT for all entering by PROFESSIONALS when in outbreak (right now many LTCs are hiring random volunteers to do this!)

I could keep going...and all of this has been communicated to the government (they could have implemented the LTC Commissioners recommendations too which touched upon all of these) but they didn't.

So there is no easy answer now BECAUSE THEY SQUANDERED THEIR OPPORTUNITY TO ACT.

And now our most vulnerable must pay the price for ongoing political inaction & ineptitude.

Let's be honest, they've been paying price all throughout Covid, w/ over 5,000 in #LTC paying the ultimate price (their life) but now those who survived could be bankrupted to boot.