Ontario nursing home law violates Charter,advocates allege in lawsuit
Government introduced and quickly passed Bill 7 last fall
Canadian Press/Canadian Lawyer Magazine (13 April 2023). https://www.canadianlawyermag.com/business-news/ontario-nursing-home-law-violates-charter-advocates-allege-in-lawsuit/375133.
A new Ontario law that allows
hospitals to fine discharged patients $400 a day if they do not move into a
nursing home not of their choosing violates the Charter of Rights and Freedoms,
advocates allege in a lawsuit filed Wednesday.
The Ontario Health Coalition and the
Advocacy Centre for the Elderly said the new law, the More Beds, Better
Care Act, also known as Bill 7, strips away several rights of older patients.
“Bill 7 singles out a particular cohort
of older, ill and very vulnerable patients to be deprived of their right to
informed consent about where they will live and the health care they receive,”
the organizations said in the suit.
The government introduced and quickly
passed Bill 7 last fall, allowing hospital placement coordinators to accept a
spot in a long-term care home and share their health information without a
patient's approval.
Doctors
and nurses determine if a patient is well enough to be discharged out of the
hospital, which is when they are designated to need an “alternate level of
care.” Then a hospital placement coordinator can determine if a patient is
eligible to be moved into a nursing home, can pick a home, send personal health
information to a home and authorize admission to a home all without the consent
of these patients.
Patients
have no right to review or appeal the decisions made by the hospital,
the organizations say.
The law does
not allow hospitals to physically remove patients.
There
are about 5,700 so-called ALC patients in hospitals across Ontario, but only about
a third of those patients have been designated to go to a long-term care home.
The law also
allows patients to be sent to nursing homes up to 70 kilometres from their
preferred spot in southern Ontario and up to 150 kilometres away in northern
Ontario.
The
attorney general's office declined to comment, saying it would be inappropriate
with the case before the court.
“There's
a lot of pressure on people in hospital to be moved into homes that they don't
want,” said Jane Meadus, a lawyer with the Advocacy Centre for theElderly who fights for the rights of those in long-term care homes, hospitals,
and psychiatric facilities.
“These
homes are often far away and they often are physically substandard homes.”
The
suit alleges the new law violates two sections of the Charter. They
argue it infringes on an individual's right to life, liberty and security under
section seven of the Charter.
The
bill deprives patients of their right to privacy “by allowing any placement
coordinator or clinician to access and share an ALC's personal health
information with any number of (long-term care) homes to which admission is
being sought and with other care providers as well,” the suit alleges.
The
organizations also argue the law violates section 15 of the Charter
that guarantees the right of equality and protects against discrimination.
The
organizations say the law unfairly punishes those 65 and older.
“They
are being deprived of rights that every other hospital patient, and every other
resident in Ontario for that matter, to consent to where they live, to consent
to the treatment and care they're going to receive,” said Steven Shrybman,
a lawyer who is working on the case for the advocacy groups.
“They
alone are being singled out to be deprived of those rights simply because
they're old and ill and require care.”
The
organizations want the court to declare some provisions of the bill
unconstitutional and invalidated.
This
report by The Canadian Press was first published April 13, 2023.
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