Ontario proposes fix to issue of long-term care cultural admissions [Video]

Ontario is proposing a pilot project to tweak long-term care priority rules in order to address a problem of declining and mismatched admissions to the province’s cultural homes.

The issue was created by the Progressive Conservative government’s own 2022 law known as Bill 7, which has been criticized for allowing people to be placed in a long term-care home not of their choosing.

It gives admission priority to people in hospital, as a way to free up beds for acute care once people can be discharged. Thousands of people across the province are waiting in hospital beds at any given time for a spot to open up in long-term care.

But advocates and operators in the sector say the new admission rules have proven to be a bit too blunt of an instrument when it comes to the several dozen cultural long-term care homes across the province, which cater to …