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Law that could force patients into long-term care is challenged
Posted: September 22, 2024
(September 21, 2024) By: Sudbury.com
Ontario’s Bill-7, the More Beds, Better Care Act, will be in the Ontario Superior Court of Justice on Monday
Ontario’s Bill-7, the act that could force a patient out of the hospital and into a long-term care home, is facing a legal challenge.
The Ontario Health Coalition along with the Advocacy Centre for the Elderly (ACE) have jointly launched a charter challenge against the Ontario Conservative government that will be presented to the Ontario Superior Court of Justice on Monday.
The Coalition and ACE argue that Bill 7 – known as the More Beds, Better Care Act – is a violation of the fundamental rights of patients with respect to their privacy and informed consent, said joint news release statements.
The concern is that the act enables hospitals and placement coordinators from the Home and Community Care Support Services (HCCSS) to share the patient’s personal health information with long-term care home operators and others, without the patient’s consent.
The Bill-7 law applies to hospital patients, who are in an acute care setting, to be deemed as “Alternate Level of Care” (ALC).
The law also enables hospitals and placement coordinators to coerce patients to move to long-term care homes that they do not want to live in because the home is unsafe, inappropriate or far away from family and friends.
Patients can be sent up to 70 kilometres away in Southern Ontario, and up to 150 kilometres or even further if there are no beds available nearby in Northern Ontario, said the news releases.
The challengers said the patient’s rights are guaranteed in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms in our Constitution. Bill-7 targets the elderly, overriding their rights to privacy and informed consent that all other patients enjoy, and risks the lives of those patients sent to substandard long-term care facilities far away from their spouses and loved ones. The results are often an increase in their suffering and a premature death, said the news release.
