Call for human rights inquiry into systemic discrimination against the elderly in Ontario hospitals and long-term care

The Advocacy Centre for Elderly (ACE), the Ontario Health Coalition (OHC) and the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) are calling on the Ontario Human Rights Commission to conduct  a landmark inquiry into the provincial government’s long-standing policies of ‘de-hospitalization’, and rationing levels of care and access to long-term care, that disproportionately hurt the elderly.

Age discrimination occurs routinely as Ontario copes with its lack of hospital capacity by denying or restricting the elderly access to health care. This has become tragically acute and brutally obvious during the COVID-19 pandemic. Thousands of elderly patients have been subject to transfers out of hospital often without due regard to their right to consent and care needs. Long-term care residents have been left with horrifically inadequate care and nearly 4,000 long-term care residents – many of whom were not transferred to hospital for care despite being acutely ill — have died.

It is vital to reassess the province’s health policies and the inequities in access to health care which exist for elderly Ontarians, especially now in the midst of a pandemic.