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‘It shortens their lives’: Widower recounts final days of her husband’s life following forced move to long-term care home
Posted: September 24, 2024
(September 23, 2024) By: CHCH News
It has been called an infringement of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, and now it is being challenged in court as one.
The More Beds, Better Care Act was designed to move discharged patients out of hospitals and into long-term care homes, not of their choice — or face a fine of $400 a day.
On Monday, the first day of a court hearing around its constitutionality began.
For Gail Herrington, it left her with no other choice after her husband Rick Pinto had emergency hip surgery. Only three weeks had passed before she was told by hospital staff her husband had to leave.
“I was literally forced to sign paperwork because they said I couldn’t take him home, so he has to go somewhere else,” she recounted to CHCH News. “Within a day or two, they said he was accepted,” and Pinto was placed into a holding hospital.
All the while, Herrington said his health was continuing to deteriorate. Herrington said Pinto fell into a bad bout of sepsis, and just two months into the ordeal, he died.
“He should have never left the hospital, but I was told he had to,” Herrington said.
Constitutional Crisis
The Ontario Health Coalition and the Advocacy Centre for the Elderly argue that Bill 7 removes the choice of where these patients will spend their final days.
The groups say that while patients may no longer require hospital care, they shouldn’t be forced to live somewhere they don’t want to or pay $400 a day to stay in a hospital.
However, when Premier Doug Ford was asked about the bill and the charter challenge, he said patients receive better care in long-term care homes than they do in hospitals.
“A hospital is not the place to drop off your mother or father. They may not get their first choice, but they will get their second choice and move on a list to get their first choice,” he said.
The Ontario Health Coalition says the government is fueling a narrative that older adults or their families want to stay at hospitals when that’s not the case.
“Mostly people would like to go either home or to a long-term care home, but they just don’t want to go to the one they are being forced to,” a spokesperson said.
