People with loved ones in long-term care homes in Ontario might assume those facilities are thoroughly inspected every year to ensure they are in compliance with safety standards and regulations as the Ontario Ministry of Long-Term Care says they should be.
The province says on its website that each care home undergoes an annual inspection that includes interviews with residents, family members and staff "as well as direct observations of how care is being delivered."
But CBC News has learned that last year, only nine out of 626 homes in Ontario actually received so-called resident quality inspections (RQIs).
CBC News reviewed inspection reports from the last five years for all long-term care homes in the province and found that while most received a comprehensive resident quality inspection in 2015, 2016 and 2017, the number dropped to just over half in 2018 and just nine last year.
That came as a surprise to Natalie Mehra, executive director of the Ontario Health Coalition, which has been lobbying for better regulations around long-term care in Ontario for 25 years.
"It's incredibly frustrating to hear this," she said. "We have been fighting for a regular, unannounced inspection each year for all of the homes since the 1990s, and we've won it, and then we've seen it deregulated, then we won it again.
"And then quietly behind the scenes, it stops happening again, and we have to fight and win it again."
Source: CBC NEWS
