Ontario allowing hospitals to transfer patients to LTC without consent in urgent cases

Health Minister Christine Elliott says the new measure is needed to free up hospital ICU beds while hundreds of patients currently in hospital are waiting to be discharged to a long-term care home.

By Michael Ranger

The province has announced a new emergency measure that will allow hospitals to transfer patients awaiting long-term care to nursing or retirement homes without their consent.

Health Minister Christine Elliott says the new measure is needed to free up hospital ICU beds while hundreds of patients currently in hospital are waiting to be discharged to a long-term care home.

“This was a very difficult decision to make,” said Elliott. “However, the consequences of not doing so could be devastating if we don’t have the hospital beds we urgently need to care for the growing number of COVID patients across the province.”

The province says the transfers without consent will only be done in the most urgent cases and will only happen if doctors are confident it will not further compromise the patients’ health.

The emergency order is temporary and the province is amending regulations under the Emergency Management and Civil Protection Act (EMCPA) to enact it.

“Hospitals are doing everything they can to maintain and sustain capacity by transferring patients out of hotspot regions and redeploying staff and resources but the pressures are unrelenting,” says Anthony Dale, head of the Ontario Hospital Association. “It is essential that hospitals work very closely with patients and families experiencing a transition in care during this difficult period.”

Elliott says the ongoing spread of variants of concern continues to threaten health care capacity across the province.

“Building on the more than 3,400 beds that have been added to the system since the beginning of the pandemic, our government will continue to take all necessary actions to ensure Ontarians have a safe place to be cared for in our hospitals.”

Ontario’s hospitals have been facing a major capacity crunch as the third wave of the pandemic has reached its peak.

Brampton Mayor Patrick Brown said Wednesday that the city’s ICUs are well beyond capacity.

“We are in a permanent cycle where patients have to be sent to hospitals across Southern Ontario,” says Brown. “And that’s not a sustainable situation to be in.”

Brampton’s weekly COVID positivity rate remains close to a record that was set last week, sitting at 22.2 percent, according to Dr. Lawrence Loh. That number is more than triple the provincial rate.

Ontario’s auditor general released a report on Wednesday with findings on the COVID-19 outbreak in Ontario long-term care homes.

Bonnie Lysyk revealed that homes were not required to prepare for a pandemic emergency like COVID-19 before it occurred.

In a special report, Lysyk took aim at overcrowding, poor ministry oversight, and a severe staffing shortage that existed even before the pandemic struck.

Both the provincial government and nursing-home sector had failed to heed lessons learned from the SARS epidemic, while concerns raised repeatedly for years went unaddressed, Lysyk’s report said.

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