City wants provincial funds for long-term-care reform
Municipality has filled Wentworth and Macassa service ‘gap’ for years, general manager says
City officials are signalling concern over how Hamilton will maintain services in nursing homes and emergency shelters if government pandemic funding abruptly expires.
“This virus isn’t going away in the next couple of months,” Paul Johnson, general manager of healthy and safe communities, said Thursday.
And with shortcomings the coronavirus has exposed, Johnson hopes dollars flow to support a badly needed revamp.
“We’ve learned that certain things really need to be done in a different way.”
Pre-pandemic, Macassa Lodge and Wentworth Lodge, the city’s two nursing homes, received only what Johnson described as cost-of-living increases from the province.
That hasn’t been enough to ensure the level of services required as more residents with acute needs move into the longterm-care homes, he told The Spectator.
“We have been making up that difference or that gap through the municipality. It’s been going on for a number of years.”
Johnson warns municipalities alone can’t shoulder the burden of a reform to long-term care that he’s certain will happen in the wake of the pandemic.
Similarly, a shift in shelters from congregate settings to individual quarters, with a greater emphasis on mental health services, needs more than just oneoff funding boosts from senior levels of government, he added.
Such a new model is crucial not only to help prevent the spread of viruses, but also to provide better security for residents, Johnson said.
During a budget session Thursday, he raised these concerns, while lamenting not having a “crystal ball” to predict how the pandemic will play out in 2021.
Johnson expects his department — which has provided much of the front-line emergency response to the pandemic — can cover “for the moment” an expected $29 million in COVID-19-related demands in 2021 through funding.
But he told councillors the city should brace for a hit next year. “We do see some challenges in 2022.”
Healthy and safe communities proposes a preliminary bump of 3.7 per cent, or $9.3 million, on a $257-million levy budget for 2021.
But that hike could be reduced with the application of onetime provincial funding for child care and early learning as city budget talks continue into February and March.
During his presentation, Johnson hailed staff in various services — including public health, EMS, fire, housing, Ontario Works, homelessness, child care and recreation — for rising to the occasion during a “year like no other.”
There were successes, such as the prompt opening of a surge shelter for men at the FirstOntario Centre downtown, and turning Dave Andreychuk arena on the Mountain into a drive-thru assessment operation.
But there has also been also tragedy — including eight resident deaths during an outbreak at Macassa Lodge on the east Mountain.
Coun. Tom Jackson said there’s “no greater appetite” than now for the Ontario government to direct more funding to long-term care.
“We’ve got to hit while the timing is right.”
During Hamilton’s first pandemic year, the city’s wait list for social housing grew to 6,647 households, from 6,231 in 2019. Of those on the list in 2020, 1,089 waited to transfer from one unit to another.
Coun. Chad Collins noted frustration over the city’s twoyear wait for federal sign-off on a $194.25-million funding arrangement to tackle CityHousing’s repair backlog in coming years. “We’re just waiting for our turn and our fair share.”
As people headed to natural areas in the April-to-December pandemic stretch, firefighters mounted 20 rope rescues, up from nine during the same period in 2019.
“They’re getting off the beaten path where they’re supposed to stay,” Fire Chief Dave Cunliffe told councillors.