The Ontario government is currently reviewing and revising the LTC Act. Now is the time to ensure that the Residents’ Bill of Rights is no longer violated.
This new legislation ‘will look fundamentally at what the foundation of long-term care needs to be in Ontario” and respond to recommendations from Ontario’s Long-Term Care COVID-19 Commission and others.
While all the recommendations in the Commission’s Report merit implementation, the following two recommendations are critical and need to be included in the revised LTC Act:
- Ensure that family members are never denied access to their loved ones in long-term care homes (recommendation #31), and
- Recognize the need for a transformative culture change using an emotion-based approach to care where residents, staff and families feel part of a community and are treated with dignity and respect; where there are small home home-like environments, where there is adequate, full-time, well-paid staff, who are trained in empathy and culture change and where family members are integral members of the team (recommendation #58)
Please encourage the Ontario Government to do the right thing and bring transformative culture change to long-term care homes in Ontario. Write to your MPP or to your City Councillor, or write a letter to the editor, or any other action that you think will help to promote a quality, dignified life for our seniors living in long-term care homes.
I am so glad Premier Ford that your government has the fixing of Long Term Care on your agenda.. As a retired nurse I have voiced my opinion and asked for help, for these poor souls, for over 30 years. It is time that seniors,, staff be treated with respect.
I know this is an extremely expensive proposition , no one should resent money spent on this cause. Please keep this attention and fix this problem on these elder Canadians.
Thanks for your comments.
We run our LTCs like the orphanages of old. They are a warehouse for old people and they are treated like nuisances rather than valued seniors. The pandemic contributed to the killing of thousands of our old people, and it could have easily prevented if the homes were not run for the profit of the owners instead of the care of residents. Much needs to change.
Indeed much needs to change. We found that when culture change was implemented in some long-term care homes in Ontario (and elsewhere), there were positive outcomes in all types of homes: municipal not-for-profit, charitable, and for-profit homes.
As a senior, I am most concerned when I visit my friends in long-term care facilities & see that their needs are being ignored in order for the staff to fulfill the government’s needs. There is insufficient staff to be able to give the care needed by the residents & fewer staff, trained in a transformative culture mode to put in place what the residents need. So, I still seniors slumpt over in their wheel chairs, in circles outside the lunch room waiting to be admitted or in the same position in their chairs sitting in front of the TV in a lounge, sleeping in their slumpt-over position.
There are no staff in sight, no conversation taking place & no one to care for the people who helped this country become what it has become. It’s a sad reflection but true reflection of the government’s attitude towards seniors when with a transformative culture change we could visit our senior friends living in long-term care & enjoying the final years as alert, active, happy individuals!
thanks for taking the time to comment and your support.