This article was published in the Ottawa Citizen, May 4, 2022
C.A.R.P. asking for public support to make transformation of Ontario’s long-term care home system a ballot box issue
In a recent opinion piece Grace Welch and Brian Graham articulated well the major shortcomings of Ontario’s long-term care home system brought to light as a result of the pandemic and the type of changes needed.
Within the present system, it is very challenging for staff working in long-term care homes to address all the physical, social, psychological, spiritual, and cultural needs as described in the Long-Term Care Homes Residents’ Bill of Rights. Ontario has one of the most risk adverse long-term care homes system in Canada where the overabundance of regulations contributes to objectifying residents according to tasks, not needs.
C.A.R.P. – a New Vision for Aging (Canadian Association of Retired Persons) wants to see a drastic transformative change in long-term care homes from a task-based to an emotion-based model of care. Such models already exist: Eden Alternative, Green House, Butterfly and Hogewey in which the quality of care is understood as a relationship where residents, staff, families and volunteers are treated with dignity and respect in a homey environment, and kindness permeates the home. These models have been implemented in Canada including Ontario, Saskatchewan, Alberta, and British Columbia, in the United States, and internationally. No need to reinvent the wheel.
There are a growing number of both public and for-profit long-term care homes in Ontario that have successfully implemented an emotion-based model of care on one or more units in their homes. Most of these homes did so within existing budgetary and regulatory constraints with plans to expand the model.
Even closer to home, kudos to the Glebe Centre (a non-profit charitable home in Ottawa) which is already in the second stage of implementing the Butterfly model, and to Bonnechere Manor and Miramichi Lodge in Renfrew County which have begun the process of implementing the model.
These homes also experienced better outcomes both pre and during COVID than the traditional homes with fever cases and fewer deaths. Other benefits include improved resident and family engagement; improved staff satisfaction; reduced use of anti-psychotropic drugs; reduced use of food supplements; reduced staff sick leave (huge cost savings for some); and the list goes on.
We recognize that home care services are also broken and need a major revamping. However, our aging population is increasing and so is the number of people with dementia This means the need for long-term care homes is not going anywhere soon. Circumstances are such that not every loved one when becoming frail, either physically and/or cognitively, can be cared for at home. Approximately 85% of all residents in long-term care homes have either some kind of dementia or some complex chronic disease that requires 24/7 care. It is unrealistic to expect these individuals to be cared for at home.
The action needed is to immediately begin change from task-based to emotion-based care in Ontario’s long-term care homes. This can’t happen overnight but we need to start somewhere and the sooner we start the better. There are many ways to do so, including a variety of pilot projects – one unit at a time, one floor at a time, one home at a time. Residents in long-term care homes have been deprived for decades of the quality of care and quality of environment they so rightly deserve. This change can’t come quickly enough!
The Ontario Morocco Commission recommended ‘that the Government promote and provide funding for long-term care homes that change to recognized emotion-based models of care”. Ask your MPPs if they would commit to including this in the budget process in the first year of their term, if elected.
If we don’t begin to fix the long-term care home system now, after two years of horrific tragedies, long-term care homes will be forgotten once again for decades or until another pandemic hits!
Claude Paul Boivin, President, C.A.R.P. Ottawa
Kathy Wright, Vice-President, C.A.R.P. Ottawa
C.A.R.P. – A New Vision for Aging (formerly known as the Canadian Association for Retired Persons) is Canada’s largest advocacyAssociation for older Canadians promoting equitable access to health care, financial security and freedom from ageism. It is a non-partisan association with over 330,000 members in Canada, over 200,000 in Ontario and 10,000 in the Ottawa Region.
I agree with C.A.R.P.’s New Vision for Aging. However I strongly believe it must go hand-in-hand with availability of care at home, to keep as many relatively active and healthy elderly at home, with graduated in-home care as required. Properly trained Home Health Carers could work part-time as required with elderly clients in their own private homes and thus take some of the numbers pressure off Ontario Care Homes and be a desirable and cost-effective alternative.
This is an European-proven cost-effective model.
Thanks for your feedback. Significant improvements are needed on both the long-term care home, and the home care fronts.
I endorse fully the stated information and will make every effort to let our candidates know.
Thanks for your encouragement and willingness to be in touch with your candidates.
I agree completely!
Thanks for your encouragement.
Very well put.
I will attempt to talk to my candidates
Thanks for your positive feedback and willingness to reach out to your candidates.
It is about time our governments started putting more resources into this type of long term care, but I still think it will be too little, too late. As a senior who will probably be looking at LTC within the next five years, will there be anything available for me, or will I wither away in a corner of a dingy building ignored by everyone as I have no living relatives to advocate for me. Even now the LHIN system has ignored my repeated telephone calls since early February. I don’t expect it will get any better when I need LTC.
Thanks for your comments. We need to continue to advocate for these types of improvements…..there is a long road ahead but we need to start somewhere.
This article is excellent. Both the prevailing situation and the solution to the problems are explained in a simple straightforward way. Reading this article gives me hope. It is very uplifting to know that progress is already underway. Thank you for your efforts.
Thanks for your support and encouragement. We need to keep the pressure on if we want major reform to become a reality in Ontario’s long-term care home system. It won’t happen overnight but we need to start somewhere.
This is a well written passage which helps focus on the difference we all will face sooner or later. However, I think along with this, perhaps as a prelude to the facts, we need to provide in the words of Dr. Bill Thomas, as stated in Happily Ever Older by Moira Welsh, “writing about the bad would never lead to change that could be inspired by the good” (p. 37). Even a picture of a happy place where seniors are shown engaged in conversation with a group of young people would start the reading with a “bright” spot! Just a thought!
Thanks for your comment. We have seen evidence of the positive change that residents in long-term care experience when an emotion-based approach to care is implemented.
Focusing on the successes which Dr. Bill Thomas and Moira Welsh have witnessed in their respective experience are well worth promoting.