Bill 7 is now in place.
The bill gives hospitals the power to move alternate level of care patients to a long-term care facility.
The Bill also threatens to charge patients $400 a day to stay in hospital.
It also enables hospitals and discharge planners to assess the patient without their consent, share their personal health information to an array of long-term care or other companies without their consent, fill in their applications without their consent, and admit them into long-term care homes or other services without their consent.
Northern Ontario patients can be transferred to any long-term facility up to 150 km away, if necessary.
NDP Long-Term Care critic Frances Gelinas calls it a cruel scheme that will do nothing to solve the staffing crisis in hospitals.
“Elderly and vulnerable people across the province are bracing for the possibility of being torn apart from their loved ones as the financial threat contained in Doug Ford’s Bill 7 regulations comes into effect,” says Gelinas in a release. “Any alternate level of care patient unable to pay exorbitant fees of $400 a day will be at risk of being forced from hospital beds into long-term care homes that they didn’t choose, far from their loved ones.”
A health care advocacy group is planning a charter challenge against the legislation.
The Ontario Health Coalition will discuss the legal action this morning.
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