Bill has graciously provided this page for the use of the Community Conversations Mobilization Group.  

Excerpts from:  
Ontario must move away from institutionalized long-term care Bold, transformative action that is needed,
By:  Douglas Cartan, Judith Sandys and Peter Clutterbuck 

"With a rapidly aging population never has the need been more critical to transform elder care. We need a more modern, comprehensive, non-profit, community based and co-ordinated system of care for elders. The pandemic’s horrific toll on seniors’ lives in long-term-care facilities the past two years supports the urgent need for a transformative approach. Simply “fixing” a fundamentally flawed model of institutional care will not work.
It is important to note that other socially devalued groups (orphans, Indigenous youth, people with mental illness, people who have developmental disabilities, troubled youth) forced to use the institutional model of care have abandoned it amid harm, lawsuits and scandal."

Three central themes emerge from this article:

1. "Recent polls and surveys from the National Institute on Aging and from the Canadian Association of Retired Persons (CARP) find that more than 95 per cent of seniors want to avoid long-term institutional care."
2. "We simply can’t afford to build our way out of the need for elder care. The institutional model costs over $200 per day per person of public investment given recent commitments to improve it plus co-payments from residents. In addition, property developers are provided construction subsidies of up to $200,000 per bed. The 2021 Queen’s University Report, Aging Well, concludes the institutional model of care is unaffordable."
3. "Alternatives to the institutional model of care are proven, preferred, and cost effective. Recent media coverage about the Danish model of home, health and assisted living care helps us understand what is possible. Older Danes who need double or triple the amount of home and health care that Ontario provides can access this assistance."

  "Ontario must change  its model of care. "

Douglas Cartan --disability consultant.  Judith Sandys  -- disability advocate and dean of community services (retired) Toronto Metropolitan University. Peter Clutterbuck   --  retired social development and planning consultant.
  

Published in the Waterloo Record and Hamilton Spectator
Read the full article here:  
https://www.thespec.com/opinion/contributors/2022/05/10/ontario-must-move-away-from-institutionalized-long-term-care.html?rf