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Ontario NDP Leader Andrea Horwath offers plan for 50,000 new long term care spaces

'It is an impossible task to complete even basic responsibilities let alone provide emotional and psychological support'
long term care bed
Long term care bed / Stock photo

Ontario NDP Leader Andrea Horwath says if elected in the next provincial vote her government will create 50,000 new long-term care spaces and within two mandates will make the entire long-term care home system public and not for profit reports CKAT News.

‘It represents a record investment in better care and better quality of life for elders and more peace of mind for their families. It’s a plan for a system that gives people a better quality of life instead of taking it away,” she says.

In addition, she says her government will increase the number of personal support workers and put infectious disease specialists in every long term care home.

Local advocate Anne McIntyre who has family members at a facility says the system needs to be overhauled.

“The staff are often few and far between and almost always working short-staffed. This impacts the residents as things are forgotten and left out completely. Baths have had to be postponed,” McIntyre says.

She says the minimum should be four hours of care per resident.

“It is an impossible task to complete even basic responsibilities let alone provide emotional and psychological support. I have seen falls, crying, outbursts, yelling, and altercations. All of which might have been avoided with sufficient staff,” she says.

See Andrea Horwath, joined by NDP MPP for Timiskaming-Cochrane John Vanthof to discuss the NDP’s plan to overhaul long-term care in Ontario below.