Ontario Making Long-Term Care Investments in Parry Sound-Muskoka

On June 25^th, the Ontario government announced that it is investing in local long-term care homes in Parry Sound-Muskoka, to help connect residents with complex needs like dementia and bariatric care to the right care in the right place, while also reducing avoidable emergency department visits and hospital stays.

“Our long-term care homes play a key role in helping residents stay in the community they grew up in,” said Graydon Smith, Parry Sound-Muskoka MPP.  “I’m thankful that our government is making smart and strategic investments in these facilities so that residents get the support they need to stay close to family and friends.”

As part of the funding, six homes in Parry Sound-Muskoka are receiving $786,453.

The funding will help long-term care homes purchase items such as IV equipment, bariatrics equipment bed support, bladder scanners, and ECGs. The funding even goes towards important everyday things like slip-proof floor mats, wrap around bed rails, and grab bars.

“Our government is continuing to take action to ensure long-term care residents across Ontario get the right care in the right place,” said Natalia Kusendova-Bashta, Minister of Long-Term Care. “This funding will expand specialized staffing, equipment and other services at homes across the province so long-term care residents with complex needs can connect to the care they need, when and where they need it.”

Launched in 2022, the Local Priorities Fund invested $20 million in 2022-23 to help long-term care homes purchase specialized equipment and train staff to provide more specialized care, so more homes can welcome residents who have complex needs but no longer require acute care in hospital. The fund also helped current residents who have new, or increasingly complex medical or specialized equipment needs which could not be previously accommodated in their long-term care home, helping to avoid unnecessary hospital admissions.

“Through the Local Priorities Fund, our government is continuing to ensure that Ontarians, at every stage of life, have access to the care and support they need, when they need it,” said Sylvia Jones, Deputy Premier and Minister of Health. “This investment builds on the historic work our government is doing to provide people with the right care, in settings most convenient to them, whether in their community or in their home.”

The Local Priorities Fund is part of a broader investment of over $120 million in 2022-23 and complements the recently launched Equipment and Training Fund, which helps long-term care homes purchase more diagnostic equipment and train staff to better manage and treat residents’ conditions that often lead to preventable hospital visits, such as urinary tract infections, falls, pneumonia and congestive heart failure.

The announcement comes after hundreds of families claimed that they were being separated by loved ones in need of long term care. On June 12^th, 2024, an article by the Canadian Press stated that more than 400 patients have been forced into Ontario nursing homes they did not want to go to and the rate of those moves is increasing. There were 424 discharged patients who moved to a nursing home not of their choosing out of 20,261 patients who were moved to long-term care homes since a law allowing such moves came into force in late 2022, the long-term care minister’s office said. About one-third of those patients were moved in just February and March, the last two months for which data was available.

In the summer of 2022, the government introduced Bill 7 in an effort to open up much-needed hospital space. The law is aimed at so-called alternate level of care patients who are discharged from hospital but need a long-term care bed and don’t have one yet. Hospitals can send those patients to nursing homes not of their choosing up to 70 kilometres away, or up to 150 kilometres away in northern Ontario, if spaces open up there first. If patients flat out refuse those transfers, hospitals can charge them $400 a day under the law.

Through a $6.4 billion investment, the government is building more than 30,000 net new long-term care beds in Ontario by 2028 and upgrading more than 28,000 older beds to modern design standards.