October 19, 2011

Dear Premier McGuinty,

It was with great concern that I learned about the significant challenges faced by the Heap family in finding appropriate care for Dan and Alice Heap (See Toronto Star October 16^th and 18^th). The Heaps decided to go public with their situation in order to bring attention to all-too-common problems faced by many seniors and their families in accessing appropriate health care. The Heap family want what all Ontarians do – change in a health care system that is currently letting our vulnerable seniors down. And it is our responsibility as MPPs and legislators to listen carefully to these concerns and bring forward the necessary solutions.  

With 25,000 seniors stuck on waiting lists for long-term care, a growing crisis of Alternate Level of Care patients stuck in hospital, and a broken home care system, seniors simply have a lack of appropriate options. The human costs of these problems are all too clear.  

In the recent election, Ontario’s New Democrats proposed timely and effective solutions to these problems. Eliminating the acute needs wait list for long-term care and ensuring that Ontarians with the highest medical needs—like Dan Heap—are able to access the care they require would be a necessary first step. But we cannot stop there. Our plan for investing an additional 7.5 million hours of home care and homemaking services, and a plan to ensure every Ontarian has access to regular health care services are also essential.

Finally, it is shameful that Ontario’s seniors remain without adequate protections when living in retirement homes. The McGuinty government’s long-awaited retirement homes bill should have created the necessary safeguards for these homes. But, instead, your government caved to industry pressure and refused to support the one hundred amendments that New Democrats’, in partnership with groups like the Advocacy Centre for the Elderly, brought forward in order to strengthen this legislation. Today, many seniors move into these homes without adequate knowledge and are placed in terrible situations when their care needs go unmet.

For too long, families like the Heaps have been the ones forced to make due as the problems in our health care system have left them scrambling to find appropriate care of a loved one. How much longer will these families have to wait for a system that can actually meet their needs?

Sincerely,

Rosario Marchese
NDP MPP for Trinity Spadina