Over the past couple of years, I’ve been trying to fight the good fight for more and better homecare and supportive housing. I’ve been trying to impress upon the powers that be that how we care for our older adults will go a long way to determining how healthy Stratford really is. Full disclosure, I turned old last summer.
Judicious policy and financial investments by both our city and our provincial government could offer a higher quality of life for our older citizens at a lower cost to them and their families. But only if we see better homecare and supportive housing as a viable alternative to institutionalizing our older adults in large for-profit private nursing homes. Where, you ask, will we get the dollars to offer better homecare and supportive housing? By avoiding the body check from the big, and I mean big, private nursing home developers. Don’t be fooled. Long term care does not mean long term care institutions. Long term care is firstly part of primary care, it’s part of home care, part of community care, part of housing and, if and when necessary, part of a non-profit nursing home care.
However, the city has apparently been sold and told by our provincial government to take it or leave it. That is, take a 288-bed facility and leave with a $800M tax bill. What first appears as a financial gain for City Council, i.e. selling surplus city land, soon reveals itself as a staggering liability for its citizens. A 288 long term care facility with inflation will cost $1billion over the 25-year life of the mortgage…. 80% paid for by the taxpayer and 100% owned by the private developer. Let me be clear; I understand the need for a certain number of not-for-profit nursing homes; but I oppose private for-profit ownership of nursing homes in Ontario who consistently demonstrated during the recent pandemic that their profit motive was more important than patient care. With a new Convenient Care At Home Act and the creation of Ontario Health atHome the priority should be investment in primary care, homecare, community care and supportive housing/assistive living.