If you believe Ontario Premier Doug Ford’s critics, he is tearing health care apart, but a new report Wednesday highlights one major area where the government is building the system back up.
One of the best-known problems in Ontario health care is the desperate shortage of long-term care beds and the effect that has on the province’s hospitals. The numbers tell a frustrating story. In 2018, Ontario had 78,664 long-term care beds and a waiting list of nearly 35,000 people. The reason is easy to discern. Between 2011 and 2018, the number of Ontarians aged 75 increased by 20 per cent but the number of long-term care beds has gone up only 0.8 per cent, according to a new analysis from the province’s Financial Accountability Office (FAO).
The previous Liberal governments chose to ignore the entirely predictable demand an aging population would place on long-term care, a necessary service for elderly people with dementia and other serious health problems. Instead of acting, the government chose to pretend that improved home care could fill the gap. Apparently not.
The stupidity of this state of affairs was further underlined by its effect on the province’s hospitals. In November of last year, more than 4,600 of the province’s 34,000 hospitals beds were filled by patients waiting to go elsewhere. Many of those people need scarce long-term beds.
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