Aug262022
Image shows a patient lying in a hospital bed.
Canada’s largest labour union is accusing the Ontario government of “scapegoating” elderly people with a plan to force them into long-term care homes as a way of fixing the province’s health-care crisis.
The Canadian Union of Public Employees, which represents 90,000 health-care workers in Ontario, called on the province Friday to scrap its proposed Bill 7.Also known as the More Beds, Better Care Act, the legislation would enable hospitals to send elderly patients to any long-term care facility, even if the individual did not choose it or if it is outside their community.Michael Hurley, president of CUPE’s Ontario Council of Hospital Unions, said that in addition to putting the “blame” for health-care staffing and capacity shortages on a vulnerable population, it tramples on their rights.

“These people would normally have the right to give consent to their treatment,” he said. “Under Bill 7 doctors and nurses are able to assess them, determine that they can be moved. And this is a decision over which they have no right of consent, nor do they have any appeal.”

Click here to read the full article on WindsorStar.com.

Category: CUPE Ontario in the Media