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Mobilization Training for Time to Care Campaign - March 8 to 11, 2015 - Cornwall, Ontario

Here's how you can help make a 4 hour daily care standard the law.

An amendment must be made to the Long-Term Care Homes Act (2007) for a legislated care standard of a minimum 4 hours per resident each day adjusted for acuity level and case mix;

“What PSWs and RPNs told us are frank, powerful and often heartbreaking accounts of how, despite their outmost efforts and dedication they are forced to provide what amounts to substandard care to residents,” said Kevin Tyrrell a regional vice-president with the Ontario Council of Hospital Unions (OCHU) in releasing the focus group report – Long-Term Care in Ontario: Fostering Systemic Neglect – at a Geraldton media conference today. 

Edmonton Journal Wed Apr 1 2015

Re: Care home criticized for moving senior, March 25 The brief mention of the eviction of my handicapped sister, Rebecca Ali, and the banning of another sister, Julie, at the Good Samaritan Millwoods Care Centre on Feb. 19, skims over some troubling issues in monitoring and legislative gaps in the long-term care (LTC) system. Complaints can lead to reprisal without recourse, as in our case. What we found out is that LTC facilities set their own admission conditions. They can evict or involuntarily transfer without notice, increase rent overnight and ban without reason or recourse. The most vulnerable in our society lack the same housing protections found in our Residential Tenancy Act.

legal action is believed to be the first to arise from a now-defunct program, funded by the Champlain LHIN, that was aimed at freeing up beds for surgical and emergency patients at the region’s overcrowded hospitals.

Ironmonger was among hundreds of seniors who were discharged from The Ottawa Hospital and Queensway Carleton Hospital to Valley Stream Manor. Until earlier this year, the retirement home on the city’s west side provided temporary beds for the elderly while they waited for permanent spaces in nursing homes.

The beds, known as “interim long-term care,” were conceived as a temporary way to relieve the gridlock caused by elderly patients who occupied hospital beds

Ontario, for instance, is pumping money into providing more home care. Manitoba is looking toward preventive medicine. Saskatchewan is reviewing ways to improve long-term care. Nova Scotia has a system where paramedics treat some ailments in long-term care facilities to avoid tying up hospital beds.

Mr. Ghiz said they could use more help from Ottawa.“Hopefully, some day, the federal government will be at the table with dollars and with ideas – we're open

finding ways to keep seniors out of hospital. Ontario, for instance, is pumping money into providing more home care. Manitoba is looking toward preventive medicine. Saskatchewan is reviewing ways to improve long-term care. Nova Scotia has a system where paramedics treat some ailments in long-term care facilities to avoid tying up hospital beds.

Bad hospital food stories are nothing new, but in the past few years there has been a renewed call to improve the healthcare system's approach.

in the 1990s. Budget cuts and pressure to privatize saw many Canadian hospitals outsource food service to companies like Aramark, Sysco, Compass and Sodexo. Cooking staff were laid off, and kitchens renovated to accommodate larger freezers and "rethermalization" ovens that could quickly heat up pre-packaged meals from centralized plants. The shift from conventional cooking to heat-and-serve meals reduced labour costs by as much as 20 per cent.

Kaiser Permanente, a private, non-profit health care provider in the U.S., has received widespread recognition and nods from the likes of authors Eric Schlossinger and Michael Pollon, whose bestselling books (Fast Food Nation, and In Defense of Food, respectively) drew the connection between food industries and environmental and health problems.

Oct 25, 2016

The state of health care for Alberta’s seniors has long been a serious concern, with a decade-long shift from long-term care beds to less-resourced, less-expensive, and less-regulated “supportive living” spaces leaving the frailest seniors at greater risk of not receiving the proper level of care. At the same time, government policy has allowed a significant, front-line presence of private for-profit companies in delivering long-term care to seniors. Residential Care in Alberta As of March 31, 2016 there were 14,768 long-term care (LTC) beds in Alberta and 9,936 designated supportive living (DSL) beds. Including an additional 243 palliative care or hospice beds gives a total of 24,947 continuing care beds in 2016.

56 Canadian long term care homes slash use of inappropriate medication

Ottawa, Ontario– May 16, 2016 – The Canadian Foundation for Healthcare Improvement (CFHI) today released dramatic results from a bold pan-Canadian initiative reducing the inappropriate use of antipsychotic medication among seniors in long term care (LTC) – fewer falls, less aggressive behaviours and resistance to care, and an improved quality of life for residents and their families.

Adjust

Mr Peterson* has had advanced Parkinson’s Disease for several years and his wife has finally been pushed to her limits caring for him at home. Mrs Dhaliwal* has suffered from Alzheimer’s Dementia for years, and she is now struggling with major behavioural challenges, worsened by a urinary infection that has further clouded her thinking and ability to communicate. The consultant shakes her head and says, “That’s two beds that we won’t be able to clear for at least a few weeks”. A non-medical onlooker would probably find our exchange disturbing — we seem more focused on the beds these patients are occupying rather than on how we might help them. But to me, the situation is so familiar that for a brief moment I forget that I’m not in my usual digs in Canada but in the United Kingdom. Indeed, this defeatist attitude can be seen over and over across the spectrum of health care settings, all over the developed world, as we struggle with the wrongly-labelled “Silver Tsunami” of aging populations — even though we have known for decades that a baby boom would eventually lead us to where we are today.

Now, thanks to advances in medicine, we are living much longer lives, likely with a number of illnesses that have become rendered as chronic diseases. However, while our patients have changed, our health care systems haven’t — the focus needs to shift from just fixing issues to keeping these patients living independently in the community with increasing levels of homecare or nursing care.    Instead, our hospitals, designed to deal with discrete emergent issues, have become incubators for these patients as they await the right “social” environment for their discharge. Such patients take up about 15% of Canada’s acute care beds — representing 7,500 Canadians each day and at an annual cost of $2.3 billion annually, with dementia alone accounting for over 30% of such hospitalization days. This keeps us in a near-constant state of overcapacity. The situation is similar in other developed countries like the United Kingdom. It is high time to refocus and redevelop our health care systems to respond to the unique needs of our aging population, who collectively represent 60% of all hospital days in Canada.

The Ontario Auditor General did a follow up to his 2009 report on health care acquired infections (HAIs) in long term care homes.  

little movement on public reporting of HAIs in LTC

Although Health Quality Ontario  does not provide public information on cases of C. difficile or hand-hygiene compliance among resident-care staff, it does report on other patient-safety indicators, such as the percentage of residents with worsening bladder function and the percentage of residents who had a new pressure ulcer (such as a bedsore) or a pressure ulcer that recently got worse. At the time of our follow-up, only about 125 long-term-care homes, including the three homes audited, reported information publicly on the Health Quality Ontario site. However, the Ministry anticipated that all homes would be participating by March 2012.

Proposals from qualified bidders will be evaluated by the geographic location of the proponents

The government also plans to create 354 nursing home beds as part of its 2011-16 nursing home renovation and replacement plan

Improving Care - Avoiding Hospitalization for Long-Term Care Residents January 29, 2014 Noon – 1:00 pm ET

Marilyn R. El Bestawi, a senior healthcare executive with experience in geriatrics, hypothesized that the best way to avoid deterioration in health status among LTC residents was to avoid unnecessary hospitalizations in the first place. Through an Ontario-led approach to patient care, developed through CFHI's EXTRA Program for Healthcare Improvement, Ms. El Bestawi and her team reduced preventable ED visits among long-term care residents by 57 percent in just three months.   

Developing Quality Palliative Care in Long Term Care Homes: Let's Provide Care for Life! Download Agenda .pdf Date: Thursday, February 27, 2014 Time: 8:30am - 4:00pm Location: Toronto Hilton Downtown Address: 145 Richmond Street West, Toronto, ON

Jun 10, 2015

SAULT STE. MARIE, ON ― Local organizers of a community meeting this Friday night focused on care levels for residents in long-term care (LTC) homes, say they are deeply disappointed that Sault MPP David Orazietti has refused an invitation to participate in a panel discussion at the event. Algoma-Manatoulin MPP Michael Mantha and Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) Ontario president Fred Hahn have both agreed to speak at the meeting slated for 7 p.m., June 12 at the Holiday Inn Express, 320 Bay St.