Filling the data gap
Why does it take a newspaper to provide Ontarians with important government data on the nursing homes that house many of our most vulnerable seniors?
Why isn’t this being done by the government itself? Or by the nursing home industry, independent health-care organizations, or university researchers?
None of them, apparently, are able or willing to do it. So it was left to the Star — with an important assist from a Liberal member of the legislature — to create a database that allows families of seniors in 631 provincial nursing homes to find out how many of a home’s residents are being given antipsychotic drugs. The database is online now, at thestar.com/nursinghomes. This is an important contribution to openness, allowing seniors and their families an idea of which homes rely most on antipsychotics, which can have powerful and sometimes dangerous side effects.
A Star investigation last month — by David Bruser, Jesse McLean and Andrew Bailey — found that a startling number of nursing homes are drugging residents with antipsychotics that keep them quiet and controlled. In the first half of last year, the homes were using these drugs on an average of 33 per cent of residents.
Ironically, the government itself collects the information but won’t make it public for fear that it might be “misleading.” It was left to Liberal MPP Donna Cansfield to make it available to the Star in order to help families make informed decisions and ask the right questions when a relative may be placed in a nursing home. “Sometimes it’s just bloody difficult navigating the system,” she says. “We should be providing the tools for people to do that.”
In other jurisdictions less addicted to secrecy, this kind of information is readily available to the public. The official website for the U.S. medicare program (which covers seniors) includes an elaborate site called Nursing Home Compare that allows users to find out all kinds of information about specific long-stay care homes — including the percentage of residents who are being given antipsychotic drugs.
Ontario seniors and their families deserve much more information about the nursing homes where many will end their lives. And it’s the government that should take the lead — rather than leaving it to enterprising journalists to fill the gap.