Tragic Suffering of Elderly – Victims of Ontario’s Discriminatory De-hospitalization - Must End: Advocates Call for Landmark Ontario Human Rights Commission Inquiry

TORONTO--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- The Ontario Health Coalition (OHC), the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) and the Advocacy Centre for Elderly (ACE), is calling on the Ontario Human Rights Commission to conduct a landmark inquiry into the provincial government’s long-standing ‘de-hospitalization’ and rationing of hospital and long-term care, health policies that disproportionately hurt the elderly. The advocates are urging the Commission to use its powers under Section 31 of the Human Rights Code to conduct a formal human rights inquiry into systemic discrimination based on age against the elderly in the provision of hospital and long-term care in Ontario.

Age discrimination occurs routinely as Ontario copes with its lack of hospital capacity by denying or restricting the elderly access to hospital care. At the same time Ontario has failed to provide adequate access to and levels of care in long-term care, charge the three organizations. This has become tragically acute and brutally obvious during the COVID-19 pandemic when the vast majority of long-term care residents critically ill from the virus were not taken to hospital, leaving them and thousands more in woefully inadequate long-term care, where nearly 4000 of them died.

OHC, CUPE’s Ontario Council of Hospital Unions (OCHU/CUPE) , and ACE, along with legal counsel from Goldblatt Partners, will hold a media conference (virtual on ZOOM) Tuesday, March 16, 2021 at 11 a.m. They will review the basis of the call for a Human Rights Commission inquiry. Equally important, they will outline why now – in the midst of a pandemic – it is vital to reassess the province’s health policies and the inequities in access to health care, which exist for elderly Ontarians. They will also provide Toronto specific health system numbers.

The Ontario Health Coalition (OHC) represents more than half a million people and 400 organizations dedicated to protecting and improving public health care in the public interest. OCHU is the hospital division of the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) in Ontario. CUPE represents nearly 50,000 hospital workers across Ontario and another 40,000 health care staff working in long-term care and community settings. The Advocacy Centre for the Elderly is a community based legal clinic for low-income senior citizens. ACE is the first legal clinic in Canada to specialize in the legal problems of seniors

lf/cope 491

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20210315005709/en/

Stella Yeadon, CUPE Communications 416-559-9300 [email protected]

Source: Canadian Union of Public Employees

You May Also Be Interested In

• OCOchem Advances Hydrogen Formate Electrolyzer Process By 10x To Create World’s Largest Industrial Scale CO2 Electrolyzer Cell
• Park Aerospace Corp. Announces Election of Chris Goldner as Vice President-Finance and the Planned Retirement of Matt Farabaugh as the Company’s Long Time CFO
• Deep Ellum Art Company Announces Electrifying Lineup Of Creeds And Desert Hearts To Ignite Dallas's Music Scene