Over two years of pandemic protocols, lessons learned, and Bill 37, An Act to enact the
Fixing Long-Term Care Act, 2021 and amend or repeal various Acts, was enacted in
December 2021, as the Providing More Care, Protecting Seniors and Building More Beds
Act 2021. This law left residents of 384 out of 626 Long Term Care homes that faced
outbreaks in wave 5 continuing to live in isolated situations or detained in their homes
without access to family or advocacy, and the Ministry of Long-Term Care was left without
meaningful measures to address noncompliance Government of Ontario (2021;
Marrocco, 2021).
This resolution first presents the case for compliance and enforcement of protections for
residents of Long-Term Care Homes (LTC) in Ontario, secondly the case for the primary
adoption of the restorative care philosophy in resident care planning in lieu of the currently
placed emphasis on palliative care, and thirdly the case for not permitting these rights to
be unduly suspended by loopholes in the Act. These are rights, not targets. These issues
affect proportionately more women than men – more than 70 percent of long-term care
and nursing home residents are women who should have the right to live long productive
lives contributing to family and society (Ontario Health Coalition, 2021).
Page 9 of 11 August 2022
BPW Ontario adopted and presented to the Government of Ontario a resolution in 2021
on Safe Long-Term Care Ontario focusing on solutions based on lessons learned during
the pandemic. However, upon passing Bill 37, the government immediately awarded
12,000 bed licences to the private for-profit facilities with poor results during the COVID-
19 pandemic. For-profit nursing homes had on average 6.3 deaths per 100 residents,
compared to 2.8 deaths per 100 in non-profits and 1.4 deaths per 100 in publicly owned
nursing homes. This high rate of death was due to lower staffing ratios with more parttime
and temporary staff, and more crowded conditions in for-profit homes, despite
government incentives to upgrade resident rooms. No providers were prosecuted. Bill 37
leaves a gap in compliance enforcement (Swift, 2021).
The Act in Part II. Residents: Rights, Care and Services. Residents’ Bill of Rights deals
with the rights of residents: the right to be provided with care and services based on a
palliative care philosophy, later mentioning restorative care philosophy. The restorative
care principles need to be stressed as primary philosophy as the framework for care
planning with palliative care principles being applied only as end-of-life is approaching
based on a medical assessment (Swift, 2021).
Finally, the social isolation and negative impact of residents’ mental health during
prolonged outbreaks, Standards addressing different aspects of LTC homes, need to
focus on infrastructure and environmental design, including operating systems, design
and layout elements, and technology, which will help ensure a nimbler response to future
major outbreaks without prolonged isolation of residents from daily activities outside their
room and in-person interactions their families (Swift, 2021).
References
Government of Ontario (2021). Ontario Bill 37 – An Act to enact the Fixing Long-Term
Care Act, 2021 and amend or repeal various acts.
https://www.ola.org/sites/default/files/node-files/bill/document/pdf/2021/2021-
12/b037ra_e.pdf
Marrocco, F.N.. (2021). Ontario’s long-term care covid-19 commission final report.
https://www.ontario.ca/page/long-term-care-covid-19-commission-progressinterim-
recommendations
Ontario Health Coalition. (2021). Report: Public money, private profit: The Ford
government & the privatization of the next generation of Ontario’s long-term care.
https://www.ontariohealthcoalition.ca/index.php/report-public-money-privateprofit-
the-ford-government-the-privatization-of-the-next-generation-of-ontarioslong-
term-care/
Swift, D. (2021). Reimagining long-term care with lessons from the pandemic. CSA Group
outlines a new standard to enhance quality of life and protect residents, staff, and
visitors. Hospital News, October, 2021. https://hospitalnews.com/reimagininglong-
term-care-with-lessons-from-the-pandemic/
