Ontario bill will protect bad actors in long-term care homes, advocates say
Inspection reports will be removed from website three years past publication, bill proposes
The Ontario government is proposing restricting public access to long-term care (LTC) home inspection reports — a move advocates say will protect bad actors in the sector.
Currently, all LTC home inspection reports are posted online. But under the proposal, contained within a bill tabled last week by Minister of Red Tape Reduction Andrea Khanjin, the reports would be published for three years before being removed from the website.
"It's very clear here that it's to shield the bad reputations of repeated bad actors in long-term care from having their records of non-compliance being made visible," said Vivian Stamatopoulos, a professor at Ontario Tech University and long-term care advocate, in an interview with CBC Radio's Metro Morning on Tuesday.
Over 30,000 reports are currently available online, dating back over 15 years, including for homes that are no longer operational, according to the Ministry of Long-Term Care.
The ministry will continue maintaining reports outside the three-year time period, and reports will be available "upon request," spokesperson Mark Nesbitt said in an email on Monday.
"By setting a three-year publication period for reports, the government is ensuring the public has access to relevant and accurate information that reflects each long-term care home's current performance," he said.
The time frame is similar to other inspection industry practices, such as for child-care settings, he said.
But Stamatopoulos called the comparison a false equivalency. Children don't live in daycares, and the history of deaths, noncompliance and abuse in Ontario LTC homes demands a full public record, she said.
From March 2020 to April 2022, during the COVID-19 pandemic, 4,335 residents died in Ontario's LTC homes, according to a September 2023 report from the province's ombudsman.
The Canadian Armed Forces released a report in May 2020 detailing disturbing conditions observed by its members in five Ontario LTC homes, including accounts of elder abuse and an accusation that improper care led to the choking death of a resident. The soldiers were called in to help after some of the province's long-term care facilities were overrun by COVID-19 outbreaks.
If the government does implement the three-year time frame for online access to inspection reports, Stamatopoulos says by 2026, "the worst of the worst times in long-term care is just going to be gone."
"And then eventually, it will all be gone."
Homes have been significantly improved: Health Minister
Many people accessing the online reports may be trying to decide which LTC home they or their family member would like to apply to, said Graham Webb, executive director of the Advocacy Centre for the Elderly, a legal aid clinic that serves low-income seniors.
He said he doesn't see any advantage to the public by reducing the online access window.
"There could well be information outside of a three-year window that would be relevant to their decision making process," Webb said. "We think they should have more transparency, more access to information rather than less."
Health Minister Sylvia Jones said Tuesday that the policy change will standardize approaches to reports across all ministries.
She said the government has made significant improvements to LTC homes in recent years, such as eliminating four-bed ward rooms. Those type of ward rooms were ended in April 2022, according to a government news release at the time.
"We made those changes as quickly as possible because we knew that there was a better way to provide care for our loved ones," Jones said.
Move will add more red tape, advocate says
But Stamatopoulos said families, journalists and researchers all rely on the publicly available reports to demonstrate long-standing issues in the sector and support their calls for systemic change.
If the reports are removed, she said it will no longer be possible to do historical analysis and examine trends overtime.
Stamatopoulos said she doubts the government will provide reports upon request in a timely manner. Currently, she said she is waiting for the Ministry of Long-Term Care to get back to her on questions she sent them about inspection reports four months ago.
Requiring additional resources to field individual requests for reports will be inefficient and add more red tape when the data is already publicly available, she said.
"Why would you go out of your way to take these reports down and then have to field these requests on a one-to-one basis if you don't have anything to hide, or if you're not trying to protect bad actors who have long histories of non-compliance?" she said.
CBC Toronto reached out to the Ministry of Red Tape Reduction for comment, but was redirected to the Ministry of Long-Term Care.
As LTC homes are a regulated entity, the public can share their thoughts on the proposed change through the government's Regulatory Registry website until July 4.
The Ministry of Long-Term Care will review the public's comments and consider them before making a decision on the policy change, the website reads.
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With files from Metro Morning and Kate McGillivray