Ontario putting $1.2B into long-term care, minister says

Article content

Ontario will fund three hours and 42 minutes of daily direct care per nursing home resident this year on the way to a 2025 goal of four hours of daily care, Long-term Care Minister Paul Calandra announced Friday.

Article content

When the Doug Ford government took office in 2018, the average Ontario nursing home resident received two hours and 45 minutes of direct care a day, he said.

Article content

“This record investment also includes funding to increase the care provided to residents by allied healthcare professionals such as resident support aides, physiotherapists and social workers,” Calandra said Friday. “And next year we will be increasing our investment even more to $1.8 billion. So in total that’s almost $5 billion to improve staffing and care because more staff means connecting to residents more often.”

Calandra announced an up to $1.2 billion investment into long-term care for 2023-24 in advance of next week’s provincial budget.

The government also plans to spend $6.4 billion upgrading and building new long-term care beds across Ontario, he said.

“We’re going into small communities to do this… where somebody can be very close to their family and friends.,” he said.

Opposition NDP have accused the Ford government of failing to spend enough on health care, including long-term care, pointing to a Financial Accountability Office of Ontario (FAO) report released on March 8 that foresees a shortage of personal support workers in the province.

The FAO report also concluded that Ontario will have less long-term care capacity by 2027-28 than it did in 2019-20 given the province’s growing and aging population.

aartuso@postmedia.com