Premier Doug Ford’s government is falling short of its promises to conduct annual inspections of every long-term care home in Ontario and to boost the ratio of inspectors to homes, according to information obtained by CBC News.
The government announced a plan in October 2021 to double the number of long-term care inspectors, so that the province would have one inspector for every two nursing homes in the province.
There are 624 long-term care facilities in Ontario. However, figures provided to CBC News this week by the Ministry of Long-Term Care show that only 234 inspectors are currently working in the field.
That’s well short of the 312 that would be needed to meet the promised ratio.
Earlier this year, the government declared that it had already hit its target. “Ontario now has the highest inspector-to-home ratio in the country, surpassing our goal of having one inspector for every two homes in the province,” then-minister Paul Calandra said in a February news release.
Meanwhile, new data shows the government is also failing to meet its pledges on what are called “proactive compliance inspections” — a comprehensive inspection that doesn’t just investigate a specific incident.
Yet
You have to remember he’s been very busy trying to make his friend’s money and avoid criminal charges
Help me understand.
If these homes get an ANNUAL inspection, and there are 624 of them in Ontario, why do we need 300+ inspectors??
A few dozen full timers could easily do this.
You’d have to ask Ford, he’s the one that promised it
He must have 200 inspector friends he promised jobs to. LOL
I suspect it’s because these facilities are large.
According to this statscan post from a few years ago. There were nearly 200000 long term care beds spread across the 648 facilities (at the time)
https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/daily-quotidien/210916/dq210916c-eng.htm
With 300 inspectors, they would need to in inspecting 650 beds a year, or 2-3 beds a day.
I wish the article went into more details on how these inspections work, because those numbers do seem low, and I doubt a facility would be pleased having an inspector there 4-6 months every year…
But do they inspect EVERY BED? That wouldn’t make sense. I wish they explained how these inspections actually work, to at least shed light on the apparently critical importance of having a few more inspectors.
The new proactive inspections program adds to the current risk-based program of responding to complaints and critical incidents. The proactive inspections program will assist the government and long-term care homes in identifying and resolving problems to improve the quality of care provided to residents.
The program takes a resident-centred approach by allowing for direct discussion with residents, to focus on their care needs as well as the home’s program and services. The results from proactive inspections will help the government determine where the sector can benefit from additional resources, including guidance material and best practices.
The pandemic brought to light long-standing systemic challenges due to decades of neglect. The government has a plan to fix long-term care that is built on three pillars: improving staffing and care; protecting residents through better accountability, enforcement, and transparency; and building modern, safe, comfortable homes for seniors.
The new proactive inspections program focuses on the following program areas: residents’ rights, infection prevention and control, plans of care, abuse and neglect, nutrition and hydration, medication management, policies and directives, and dining observations.
Thank you for that. Still seems like an excessive number of inspectors, but I guess that’s just how it is.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
“Ontario now has the highest inspector-to-home ratio in the country, surpassing our goal of having one inspector for every two homes in the province,” then-minister Paul Calandra said in a February news release.
The government had promised “enough inspectors to proactively visit each home every year, while continuing reactive inspections to promptly address complaints and critical incidents.”
Concerned Friends, which has been advocating for the rights of long-term care residents for more than 40 years, describes the number of proactive inspections as very disappointing.
“The complete inspections of all the standards are done relatively infrequently to this date,” said Alice Gaudine, a registered nurse and board member of the group, Living in Kingston.
“We’d like to see major improvements [to the long-term care system] and it’s hard to imagine how this will happen without a lot of increased resources,” said Lorna MacGregor, a social worker who volunteers with Concerned Friends to review the inspection reports.
An investigation by CBC’s Marketplace found the government made that move despite ministry research that showed the proactive inspections were the only way to reliably find weaknesses in infection control practices.
The original article contains 785 words, the summary contains 181 words. Saved 77%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
