About 300 people in Ontario have been transferred from hospitals to long-term care homes not chosen by them under a law the government put in place just over a year ago.
The law allows these patients to be placed in homes up to 70 kilometers away — or 150 kilometers if they are in northern Ontario — without their agreement and requires hospitals to charge them $400 per day if they decline the move.
The goal is to move patients known as alternate level of care patients, who can leave the hospital but need a long-term care bed and don’t have one yet, in order to create space in hospitals.
If the preferred long-term care homes where a patient has applied have no available spots, they may be placed in a home chosen by a placement co-ordinator at the hospital.
The Ministry of Long-Term Care has not previously made public the figures of patients moved under these new regulations, but Minister Stan Cho’s office now confirms to The Canadian Press that 293 alternate level of care patients were admitted to homes they didn’t choose between September 2022 and January of this year.
Cho says he wants individuals to be able to age comfortably in long-term care homes, rather than in hospital beds, and the law is helping people to get more appropriate care and freeing up space in hospitals.
