Health minister won’t divulge hospital patient fines
Province mum on fines levied against 7 people for refusing transfers to long-term-care homes
Ontario Health Minister Sylvia Jones and her ministry are refusing to divulge the amount of money that seven patients in the province have been fined for not accepting transfers from a hospital to a longterm-care home not of their choice.
A law enacted in 2022, known as Bill 7, requires hospitals to levy fines of $400 a day on patients who can be discharged but need longterm care and are refusing to go to a nursing home selected for them by a placement co-ordinator.
The government had long said it was not aware of anyone being fined, but a spokesperson for Jones said last week that they just learned that seven people have been fined, as Ontario Health had not been relaying that information.
Since then, daily requests to the ministry by the Canadian Press for the total charges those seven people face have been ignored.
The three opposition parties say the law should be repealed, but at a bare minimum the government should be up front about how its law is affecting patients.
“There should be an appeal process. People are powerless. What the government is doing is wrong and they know it’s wrong. That’s why they’re hiding.,” said Liberal long-term care critic John Fraser.
Nearly 300 patients have been moved to homes not of their choosing under the law, which is aimed at opening up hospital space. Patients can be placed in nursing homes up to 70 kilometres away — or 150 kilometres if they are in northern Ontario — that they didn’t opt for.
The seven people who have been fined under the law would have refused to leave the hospital.
NDP long-term care critic Wayne Gates said if the government is proud of its law it should be speaking publicly about how it works.
“They should be telling everybody how many people are being charged, why they’re being charged, where they’re going, how many are being moved … 150 kilometres away,” he said.
Green Party Leader Mike Schreiner said levying fines on people in hospital is outrageous.
“The government, at the very least, if they’re going to coerce people into leaving hospital and/or fine them, they need to be honest with the people of Ontario of how many patients are being affected and what the fines are.”