A Green House Dining Room (copied with permission)
A recent article in the Globe and Mail (Ontario edition) noted that “Quebec aims to eliminate the indignities of institutional living with the Green House model, a re-imagining of long-term care homes”. Click here to read more
The Green House model is one of several innovative models of care that feature a safe home-like environment and where relationships matter. Other innovative models include the Eden Alternative, the Butterfly Home, and the Hogewey Village.
Consistently both before and during the pandemic, long-term care homes where an innovative model was implemented have fared better in so many ways: decrease in staff sick days, decrease in antipsychotic medications, decrease in falls causing injury, fewer Covid cases and fewer deaths caused by Covid, to mention just a few.
While there has been some progress with innovative models in several provinces in Canada, Quebec is the first to show leadership with a provincial strategy that has what it takes to significantly and positively change the face of long-term care homes as we know it.
Ontario missed an excellent opportunity to lead the way when its Independent Long-term care Covid-19 Commission recommended that the Government implement an innovative model in its homes, one of several recommendations in the Commission’s Report. We encourage you to write to your MPP and demand that the government invest in a provincial strategy to implement emotion-based care within all LTC homes in Ontario.