Ontario’s ombudsman is calling for an overhaul of the province’s long-term care inspection system after his investigation found it was “completely overwhelmed” during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The damning report from Paul Dube released Thursday morning suggests there was a complete lack of inspections of long-term care homes for seven weeks when COVID-19 arrived. He says no inspection reports were issued over a two-month period.
“The Ministry of Long-Term Care was unprepared and unable to ensure the safety of long-term care residents and staff during the pandemic’s first wave,” says Dube.
The report notes the inspections stopped because the ministry had no plan in place to ensure the safety of inspectors. He says the most egregious finding was a lack of appropriate action to severe cases of outbreak in homes.
“We found it was just not ready,” he says. “It was already strained before the pandemic, but it was not ready, didn’t have a plan and didn’t have sufficient people.”
“People weren’t going into the homes for a long period of time. And then when the inspections did resume, some of the homes were let off quite easily.”
The report cites specific examples of families who were impacted, including one person who notified the ministry four times about “disturbing” conditions in his mother’s home. That home saw 53 residents die during the first wave of COVID and wasn’t inspected until October 2020, months after the complainants mother passed away.
A second person told the ministry the home where both her parents lived was short on staff. The report says the ministry assured her the issue would be dealt with, but then closed the file without taking any action. One of her parents was one of 33 people who died during the first wave at that particular home.
Dube is calling on the Ministry of Long-Term Care to have a new plan in place and act immediately to ensure inspections in the event of any future pandemic. His 76 recommendations include urging the ministry to ensure it always has staff available for in-person inspections.
The ministry told the ombudsman it has already fully or partially implemented more than half of his recommendations.
The investigation was launched in June 2020 after the Canadian military reported on “shocking conditions” inside a number of homes in the province. Dube’s office claims they received more than 250 complaints and inquiries from families of long-term care residents, employees, and other stakeholders.
The investigators conducted more than 90 interviews and in addition to reviewing emails, documents, and other evidence.