Cornwall community urged to back call for human rights inquiry into years of systemic ageism in health policies that contributed to LTC COVID-19 deaths

CORNWALL, ON –/COMMUNITYWIRE/– Advocates asking the Human Rights Commission for a ground-breaking probe into years of systemic ageism in Ontario’s health system are urging Cornwall residents to get behind their call for a public inquiry.

The Ontario Health Coalition (OHC), the Ontario Council of Hospital Unions (OCHU) the hospital division of the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) and the Advocacy Centre for the Elderly (ACE) say this type of landmark public inquiry on human rights discrimination against the elderly in access to and levels of care in hospitals and long-term care is necessary following the death of nearly 4000 nursing home residents from COVID-19, in Ontario, in the last year.

In Cornwall and the surrounding areas 60 of the 69 people who died from COVID-19 were long-term care residents. 

Over the last three decades as the population grew by 4.5 million and aged, Ontario governments have pursued the most radical hospital downsizing of any province in Canada, cutting 20,000 hospital beds. At the same time, the province rationed access to long-term care resulting in a wait-list of more than 38,000 mostly elderly Ontarians.

In Cornwall and eastern Ontario 191 long-term care beds become available each month and wait times range up to 1,836 days (more than 5 years). The number of people on the wait-list for a long-term care bed are not publicly available through the local health network.

The Cornwall Community Hospital routinely runs at over 100% capacity, hitting a high of 112% occupancy in October 2020.  Patients are crowded into emergency rooms, creating enormous pressure for the elderly to be transferred out to wherever they can find a space, regardless of the safety and appropriateness of their care.

Across Ontario, more than 2,200 mostly elderly people – deemed alternate level of care (ALC) patients, “often derisively referred to as bed blockers were offloaded from hospitals into makeshift sites. These patients who may have multiple complex chronic medical conditions, are moved to non-hospital sites and in some cases hotels, where staffing levels and care are lower. The elderly are often infantilised and treated as though their right to care is lesser than others,” says OCHU’s Michael Hurley.

Across the province, only a small percentage of long-term care residents with COVID-19 were hospitalized prior to their deaths. A recent study found that only 22.4% (1 in 5) LTC residents who died with COVID-19 were hospitalized. This compares to 81.4% (4 in 5) people who lived in the community.

“The culture of hospital diversion for long-term care residents carried through the first wave and second wave. The older the resident, the lower the rate of hospitalization,” says the OHC’s Natalie Mehra who called the failure to provide access to needed care for the elderly the cruel result of these long-standing discriminatory policies.

A human rights inquiry into Ontario’s systematic discrimination against the elderly in access to health care is long overdue say OHC, OCHU/CUPE, ACE in a letter (http://bit.ly/OHRC-letter-210316) to the Ontario Human Rights Commission.

“COVID-19 has shone a harsh light on Ontario health care’s systemic ageism in the treatment of the elderly. Four bed ward rooms, understaffing, lack of PPE, failure to hospitalize residents. But the policy choices that got us here are decades-old and must stop,” says Jane Meadus with ACE.

Today the advocates also urged the provincial government to immediately ensure everyone gets the hospital and long-term care they need free from discrimination based on age. They also called for a stop to the transfer of ACL hospital patients to non-hospital facilities.

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For more information, please contact:

Stella Yeadon, CUPE Communications, 416-559-9300, syeadon@cupe.ca