Advocates for elderly patients vow Charter challenge to Ontario LTC law
![Senior A senior is pictured in this file photo.](/content/dam/ctvnews/en/images/2020/4/19/senior-1-4903226-1660012549621.jpg)
Health-care advocates say they are preparing a possible constitutional challenge to an Ontario law that allows some discharged elderly hospital patients to be forced into a nursing home they did not choose.
Natalie Mehra, executive director of the Ontario Health Coalition, describes the More Beds Better Care Act as "fundamentally discriminatory" against the frail and elderly.
Bill 7 passed in late August and came into effect Sept. 21, but the full scope of the law was only realized Sunday when one of its most controversial components kicked in. Ontario hospitals are now required to charge a mandatory fee of $400 per day to discharged patients who refuse to go to a long-term care home arranged on their behalf.
Mehra says there is currently no way to appeal if patients are forced somewhere they don't want to go.
"We're going to take it to the courts and ask the courts to strike it down," Mehra says.
She says details of the planned legal fight will be revealed at a joint press conference Monday co-hosted by the Advocacy Centre for the Elderly.
The province has said the law is meant to help ease pressures on hospitals that have been overwhelmed by emergency visits and surgical backlogs.
The rules apply to hospital patients deemed by doctors to need an "alternate level of care" who have been placed on a wait-list to get into a long-term care home. The province said there are about 1,800 such patients across the province.
Mehra says there are 38,000 people on the waitlist for long-term care.
She says Bill 7 allows hospitals or discharge planners to override patient consent to secure a bed as far as 70 kilometres away in southern Ontario and 150 kilometres away in northern regions. If there are no beds available, Mehra says the law allows northern residents to be sent even further afield.
"The only long-term care homes that would have beds available at all are ones that have terrible reputations for care or are very far away," she says.
"We've looked through the waitlist all across Ontario to see which long-term care homes have the lowest waitlist and those will be the places. They include the homes that the military went into during the (COVID-19) pandemic and found just horrific conditions."
Mehra says the law also prioritizes hospitalized people waiting for beds, in effect bumping everyone else staying in their homes while awaiting long-term care.
If people end up falling sick because of that, they would end up in hospital and then be discharged to a long-term care facility they don't want, she says.
"We're talking about pushing people out of hospitals to die. I mean, let's get real," she says.
"It's targeting the frail elderly. We believe it's fundamentally discriminatory and ageist and there are other solutions. It's just that the government will not do that."
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 20, 2022.
CTVNews.ca Top Stories
![](https://www.ctvnews.ca/polopoly_fs/1.6979388.1722030190!/httpImage/image.jpg_gen/derivatives/landscape_800/image.jpg)
BREAKING Celine Dion stages comeback with performance at Paris Olympics opening ceremony
Celine Dion staged the comeback of her career during the opening ceremony at the Olympic Games in Paris.
Paris Olympics kicks off with ambitious but rainy opening ceremony on the Seine River
Celebrating its reputation as a cradle of revolution, Paris kicked off its first Summer Olympics in a century on Friday with a rain-soaked, rule-breaking opening ceremony studded with stars and fantasy along the Seine River.
Jasper wildfire: 'Several weeks' before Jasper can return, premier says
Premier Danielle Smith said Friday afternoon in Hinton while weather conditions are cooler, the Jasper fire is still considered out of control and that Jasper residents can expect to be away from their homes "for several weeks."
Health Canada warns some naloxone kits contain false instructions
Health Canada is warning some take-home naloxone kits come with bad instructions that should be ignored in favour of the correct guidance.
'He was just gone': Police ramp up search for vulnerable 3-year-old boy in Mississauga, Ont.
Police in Mississauga are conducting a full-scale search of the city’s biggest park for a non-verbal toddler who went missing Thursday evening. Sgt. Jennifer Trimble told reporters Friday morning that there has been no trace of three-year-old Zaid Abdullah since 6:20 p.m., when he was last seen with his parents in Erindale Park, near Dundas Street West and Mississauga Road.
Driver charged after flashing high beams at approaching police
Orillia OPP arrested and charged a driver with impaired driving after flashing their high beams.
Irish museum pulls Sinead O'Connor waxwork after just one day due to backlash
An Irish museum will withdraw a waxwork of singer-songwriter Sinéad O’Connor just one day after installing it, following a backlash from her family and the public, it told CNN in a statement on Friday.
Winnipeg senior's account overdrawn $146,000 for water bill
A Winnipeg senior is getting soaked with a six figure water bill.
Canada's Christine Sinclair: 'We were never shown drone footage'
Canada soccer great Christine Sinclair said on Friday national team players were never shown drone footage during the more than two decades she was on the team, following a spying scandal that cast a shadow over the Canadians at the Paris Games.