An elderly Chatham man was fined $5,200 for spending 13 extra days in hospital after refusing to move to a long-term care home he didn’t choose, his upset family says.
An elderly Chatham man was fined $5,200 for spending 13 extra days in hospital after refusing to move to a long-term care home he didn’t choose, his upset family says.
Advertisement 2
Article content
Seven people in Ontario have been fined for refusing transfers from hospital to a long-term care home not of their choice, The Canadian Press reported Wednesday. That follows the news agency’s reports that nearly 300 patients had been moved to care homes they didn’t choose.
Article content
Bill 7, the More Beds, Better Care Act, enacted in 2022, requires hospitals to levy fines of $400 a day on patients who can be discharged but need long-term care and refuse to go to a home chosen for them by a placement co -computer.
The Ontario government had long said it was not aware of anyone being fined, with Long-Term Care Minister Stan Cho saying as much as recently as two weeks ago.
An aide to Health Minister Sylvia Jones now says seven people have been fined, but the ministry was not aware of those cases.
Advertisement 3
Article content
Tamara Moir said her father-in-law, now 93, was fined $400 a day for 13 days in March 2023 after his family refused a move to a long-term care home not of their choosing in Wallaceburg, about 30 kilometers northwest of Chatham.
Her father-in-law spent “pretty well all of February” 2023 in hospital at Chatham-Kent Health Alliance with aspiration pneumonia, returned to his retirement residence for a few days, then ended up back in hospital in March, Moir said.
When doctors decided he needed more care and couldn’t return to the retirement home, the family applied for long-term care, she said.
The family was told by CKHA staff that if he was accepted for a long-term care bed, and if there was a bed available at a home not of their choosing, he’d have to take it or be fined under Bill 7, Moir added.
Advertisement 4
Article content
“We were threatened that if we didn’t accept a place, not of our choosing, we would be finished,” she alleged. “We were even told they would have a collection agency come and collect the fine if we chose not to pay it.”
A bed became available in Wallaceburg two days after the paperwork was filled out on March 13, 2023, Moir said.
Noting her husband’s siblings were out of the country when the offer came up, other family members had to make a decision, she said. “They (CKHA) wouldn’t extend the decision until everyone got home.”
They declined the Wallaceburg bed because her father-in-law wanted to be in Chatham, she said. The family was told again by hospital officials that a collection agency would be involved if they declined the offer, she added.
Advertisement 5
Article content
“To help reduce wait times in hospitals and free up public hospital beds for those who require acute care, Bill 7 articulated a process to support the placement of patients in the most appropriate care setting,” Chatham-Kent Health Alliance said in statement.
“CKHA continues to follow this process, and there has been one instance to-date where it has been applied,” it added.
“To protect the confidentiality of our patients, we are unable to provide comment on specific cases or patient information.”
Opposition health critic France Gélinas (NDP-Nickel Belt) said she had previously been assured by the Health Ministry and her contacts in the hospital system that no one had been fined under Bill 7.
“It was news to me,” Gélinas said Wednesday after learning of the Moir family’s plight.
Advertisement 6
Article content
Recommended from Editorial
Gélinas said she was aware of families being told fines would be levied if they didn’t agree to move their loved one to a long-term care home not of their choosing.
“Throughout Ontario it has been used. . . for hundreds of people who are in a home not of their choosing right now, because they could not face the $400 a day (fine),” she said.
The family approached the CKHA about her father-in-law’s fine, Moir said, noting Bill 7 had only been in effect a short time. After trying several other avenues, they paid it.
Today, she said her father-in-law is happy living in a Chatham long-term care home.
A spokesperson for Health Minister Sylvia Jones said Wednesday that if a fine is levied, a hospital care co-ordinator must report that to Home and Community Care Support Services, which must report that information to Ontario Health.
Advertisement 7
Article content
“Ontario Health and Ontario Health Regional Officer should have been reporting these instances of charges,” to the Health and Long-Term Care ministries, Hannah Jensen said in a statement. “This last step was not being completed.”
Jensen could not immediately say when each person was fined, if any of them still were being charged $400 daily, or the total amount of their penalties.
NDP Leader Marit Stiles called the explanation a “flimsy” excuse.
“Ontarians aren’t buying it,” she wrote in a statement. “More vulnerable people will be put in this situation if the government doesn’t get rid of a law that we in the NDP, experts and families have been telling them is flat-out cruel.”
“I feel terrible for the family having to pay that fee and I feel terrible for the hospital staff being put in that position,” said Chatham Coun. Alysson Storey, who advocates for seniors.
“It’s a systemic failure by successive provincial governments to address this issue and now families are literally paying the price.”
Moir’s advice to those facing a similar situation: be your own advocate.
“Don’t be bullied or pressured into anything,” she added. “It’s got to be a comfortable fit for your situation.”
“We’ve got to get the word out there,” she added. “I hope more people come forward that have possibly been fined (to) get the awareness out there.”
With files from The Canadian Press and Trevor Terfloth, Chatham Daily News
Article content