An Ontario court has thrown out a Charter challenge of a long-term care law that allows hospitals to move people into homes they didn’t choose, or charge them $400 a day if they want to go elsewhere.
The case — brought forward by the Advocacy Centre for the Elderly (ACE) and the Ontario Health Coalition — was heard in the Superior Court of Justice in September and the decision was released Monday.
The two parties argued Bill 7, the More Beds, Better Care Act, violates the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. According to the province, however, the law is necessary to free up much-needed hospital beds.
In the published decision, Justice Robert Centa says the law doesn’t contravene the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The bill “does not interfere with an ALC [alternate level of care] patient’s ‘right’ to choose where they live,” and the $400 daily charge for a continued hospital stay is “not coercive,” Centa wrote.
Instead, Bill 7 has a “sufficiently important objective,” the justice added.
“I found that the purpose of Bill 7 is to reduce the number of ALC patients in hospital who are eligible for admission to a long-term care home in order to maximize hospital resources for patients who need hospital-level care.”
The controversy behind the law
The bill was passed by Premier Doug Ford’s government in September 2022, and has sparked outrage among advocates, seniors and their caretakers.
Bill 7 allows hospital placement co-ordinators to choose a nursing home for a patient who has been deemed by a doctor as needing an alternate level of care, without consent.
Patients are still allowed to choose long-term care homes they prefer. But if the home they want has a waitlist and the patient decides to stay in hospital while they wait for the home to become available, they could be charged $400 a day.
Hospital placement co-ordinators can also share patients’ health information to such homes without consent. Patients can 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.
CBC has reached out to the province, ACE and the Ontario Health Coalition for comment and will update the story when responses are received.