In late January 2025, CARP Ottawa submitted a letter to the editor, the Ottawa Citizen on the need to fix Ontario’s long-term care home system. Below is the letter to the editor, published on February 1st, 2025.
“I would like to commend Lise Cloutier-Steele for her article on Ontario’s long-neglected long-term care home system. The CARP Advocacy Working Group on Long-term Care has long advocated for transforming long-term care homes from “institutions to homes.” We cannot emphasize enough that the time to change long-term care is now.
There are innovative models of care in Ontario and around the world that have transitioned from “institutions to homes” with reported better outcomes, including significant improvement in staff recruitment and retention. Yes, we need more long-term care beds, but they must come with the essential ingredient common to these innovative models: an emotion-based approach to care that fosters warm, compassionate, homelike places where residents can truly live, and staff are truly valued.
Please add CARP’S Advocacy Working Group to Ms. Cloutier-Steele’s list of organizations advocating to fix the long-term care system. Visit www. changeltcnow.ca, become a follower, and join us in our quest to see this change become a reality. It cannot happen soon enough.