Liberals have no plan for housing frail, sick seniors

QUEEN’S PARK – Bruce-Grey-Owen Sound MPP Bill Walker says the Liberal government has no plan to build new long-term care beds and house Ontario’s growing senior population with round-the-clock nursing care.

“I have asked the responsible minister multiple times to say where and when her government will build new long-term care beds to house the 25,000 frail seniors on the wait list,” MPP Walker says. “The continued non-response means they are not and they will not build any new beds to house our frail seniors in need of 24-hour nursing care.”

MPP Walker calls the absence of an action plan callous and irresponsible.

“The Minister’s non-response sounds like the only plan her government has is to wheel out the frail seniors to the end of the curb and say `we’re done with you,’” MPP Walker said in today’s Question Period at Queen’s Park.

“Your government spent 12 years studying, reviewing and supposed planning the long-term care file. Yet today, after years of shameful neglect and scarce funding, your government has left our long-term care homes crumbling and 25,000 frail seniors without a long-term care bed.”

MPP Walker challenged Associate Health Minister Dipika Damerla to announce where and how many of the promised 30,000 beds will be rebuilt in the next five years.

“Experts tell us the long-term care system is creeping up to the brink of crisis, as the waitlist will double to at least 50,000 seniors in just six years. So, not only is this government failing seniors today, but it’s also ill-prepared to meet this looming demographic crisis going forward,” MPP Walker said.

“The fact that they choose to do nothing is putting our senior citizens in a dire situation,” he said. “In fact, it is callous and cruel.”

FACT 1

Despite the Associate Minister’s statement today about the new beds built in Waterloo-Wellington region, this area has actually seen a decrease in the rate of long-term care beds per senior citizen, according to the WW LHIN.

FACT 2

Despite the Associate Minister’s assertion today that she added 500 beds in Thunder Bay, this information remains incorrect. According to the government’s most recent press release, they added 500 new home-care spaces, not long-term care in that community.

FACT 3

The Schelgel home in Windsor was announced in 2012. Despite the Associate Minister’s platitudes on this three-year-old announcement, some LTC homes in that region continue to house as many residents as they have seniors on the wait list while 2,000 still remain without access to a long-term care bed, according to the local LHIN.

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