Province tells hospitals not to move patients into long-term care homes

With COVID-19 surge still at bay, strategy builds on new plan to protect care homes

The Ontario government has told hospitals to stop transferring patients to long-term care and retirement homes, limiting one of the strategies hospitals had been planning to use to make room in case of a surge of COVID-19 patients.

Transferring patients who no longer require acute-care beds in hospitals into long-term care homes and other locations has long been part of the regional, and provincial, plan to make room in hospitals for an anticipated spike in people seriously ill with COVID-19.

So far, that surge has not happened and there is still capacity in most hospitals.

In a memo released Wednesday, provincial health officials said asking hospitals to temporarily stop the transfers builds on the government’s COVID-19 action plan for protecting long-term care homes that was also released Wednesday.

The memo noted that acute-care capacity across the province is 64 per cent, meaning hospitals have room to continue to care for patients safely without exposing them to the risk of COVID-19 in longterm care or retirement homes.

The province ramped up testing, surveillance and support for longterm care homes at a time when half the deaths from COVID-19 in the province are in homes where the elderly live. The elderly are particularly vulnerable to COVID-19.

Among the worst outbreaks in the province is at Almonte’s Country Haven long-term care home where 18 residents have died and 49 have tested positive.

There are 15 COVID-19 outbreaks at long-term care homes and other institutions in Ottawa.

While some hospitals had planned to move patients to longterm care and retirement homes, Queensway Carleton Hospital is planning to open 16 so-called ALC (alternate level of care) beds at a Kanata hotel, the Fairfield Inn and Suites, if needed, said spokesperson Ann Fuller.

“The alternative site would be staffed and appropriately retrofitted to meet the care needs of low-acuity, low-risk ALC patients,” said Fuller.

“The decision to move patients would be made with careful consideration, with a focus on those patients whose acute care needs have been met and who can be safely cared for in an alternate environment.”

The site could accommodate up to 40 patients, if needed, Fuller said.