It’s time to break the cycle of hallway health care. It’s time for Ontario to invest in ‘home first’ health care.

Every year, as fall turns to winter, we hear the same story – hospitals are overwhelmed by patients. Our loved ones are stuck in waiting rooms for hours, or are being treated in hallways where they languish. 

Meanwhile, doctors, nurses, and other health care professionals become overwhelmed and burned out and the waitlist for long-term care beds keeps getting longer.

The same old approaches will not work. Ontario families deserve better. It’s time to break the cycle. It’s time for a “home first” approach.

Help us unlock an additional 16.5 million hours of Home Care for Ontario seniors.

Building a “Home First” Ontario

Expand Capacity

Investing $2.1 billion over three years will boost Home Care volumes by 10% each year and reduce pressure on hospitals and help avoid thousands of unnecessary long-term care admissions

Attract and Retain Staff

$624 million over three years will provide a contract rate increase for compensation ensuring Home Care operators can attract and retain staff

Invest in PSWs

Investing $59.5 million will create a Mentorship Fund, establish a Skills Development Fund stream for health care workers and create a new Home Care PSW Curriculum to ensure a steady supply of highly trained Home Care professionals

Support Family-Funded Home Care

Enhancing the Seniors Care at Home Tax Credit will support families in increasing the amount of Home Care supports for their loved ones, taking pressure off hospitals and long-term care homes

These investments will lead to 16.5 million more hours of home care for seniors

These four crucial investments will increase home care capacity by 10% per year, resulting in an additional 16.5 millions hours of Home Care for Ontario seniors over the next three years.

Moving to this ‘home first’ approach will keep thousands of seniors out of hospitals and long-term care homes, which will reduce both hospital wait times and LTC wait lists.

What an additional 16.5 million hours of Home Care would mean

  • Today, Ontario’s LTC wait list sits at 45,000 people. But approximately 1 in 10 newly admitted LTC patients could be cared for at home with the proper home care supports.

    Assuming an average need of four hours of care a day, it would only take an additional 6,570,000 hours of Home Care to support 4,500 LTC destined patients at home.

  • There are an estimated 6,250 patients designated Alternate Level of Care (ALC) in hospital beds in Ontario. ALC patients do not necessarily require hospital care, but have nowhere else to go. Approximately 1 out of every 10 patients have their hospital stay extended while they wait for home care.

    That means 625 beds could be freed up every year if more Home Care was available to support patients at home.

  • New research from the DeGroote School of Business shows that by actively providing lower-acuity patients destined for long-term care with Home Care supports, 30-day readmission into hospital would drop by 59%, 60-day rates would drop by 57% and 90-day rates would drop by 54%.

    This would not only reduce pressure on LTC waitlists, but also reduce pressure on hospitals and help avoid even higher ALC growth.

Hospitals are full. Giving them more money is not a solution.

Every year, when winter hits and hospitals overflow, the same old solutions are tried: giving hospitals more money to boost capacity. Since 2019, Ontario has added 3,500 hospital beds and 7,026 new long-term care beds. But as anyone can see, this is not working to reduce wait times or clear backlogs. A rapidly growing and aging Ontario means hospitals simply cannot keep up. There is a smarter, better way to handle the increase in demand for health care services in Ontario. The solution is “home first,” an approach that keeps seniors out of hospitals and long-term care homes by providing the care they need where they want it, at home.

Ontario is ready

Following similar moves in other countries, Ontario has spent the past three years purpose-building its Home Care system to deliver more care. These investments mean the province is now ready for a much-needed shift to occur, from hospital hallways and long-term care waitlists to providing care to more seniors in their own homes.

The Home Care system stands ready to step into this bigger role. By significantly boosting the number of visits and hours of Home Care by 10% a year for the next three years, we can deliver 16.5 million more hours of care in people’s homes.