Tag Archives: Ontario Election 2014

Parties respond to Alliance questionnaire on mental health

We’ve previously noted that all parties had little to say in their official platforms when it comes to mental health care.

The Ontario Mental Health and Addictions Alliance recently surveyed the four main parties asking a series of specific questions about mental health care. The Greens, Liberals and NDP answered the questions, the PCs instead sent a form letter about Tim Hudak’s widely discredited Million Jobs Plan, reiterated the PC health hubs plan and made some non-specific comments about integration. The official PC platform only says that mental health will be a priority. “We will take the fragmented services now offered and replace them with a comprehensive approach to help some of our most vulnerable citizens,” they say.
Continue reading

Promises to fix long term care tepid despite 29 violent deaths

We hope they will take time to remember the 29.

Diablogue Election Primer graphicToday the Ontario Health Coalition is launching their rocking chair tour across the province to draw attention to the lack of staffing in the province’s nursing homes.

Lack of staffing means missed baths, long waits in soiled incontinent pads, rushed feedings and too little time to pause for a friendly bit of conversation with a frail and often isolated senior. It also means danger.

Between 2003 and 2012 there were 29 seniors killed in resident-on-resident assaults in Ontario’s nursing homes.

Last year it was Francisco DaSilva and Jocelyn Dickson. He was age 87, she 72.

There are numerous remedies that have been proposed, including better staff training and specialized facilities for persons with cognitive impairment.

Every report that has looked at the situation has come back with a recommendation to increase staffing in these homes.

Continue reading