KAWARTHA LAKES-As of May 2021, more than 38,000 people were on the waitlist to access a long-term care bed in Ontario. Officials say the median wait time is 171 days for applicants to be placed in long-term care.
Today the government of Ontario is opening a new call for applications to develop long-term care homes, as part of investment in long-term care development to deliver 30,000 net new beds over ten years. With $2.68 billion in funding, more than 20,000 new beds are now in the development pipeline, bringing Ontario more than 60 per cent of the way to reaching its 30,000-bed goal according to the government.
“Our government is fixing Ontario’s long-term care system and building more modern, safe, comfortable long-term homes for our seniors is a key part of that plan,” said Rod Phillips, Minister of Long-Term Care. “We need to build new homes and upgrade older ones so our seniors have a place where they can live in comfort and with dignity.”
The government is inviting everyone interested in building and redeveloping long-term care homes to apply, including existing non-profit, for-profit, and municipal long-term care operators, as well as organizations new to the long-term care sector. Applicants are encouraged to submit an application as soon as possible, as they will be evaluated in the order in which they are received. Successful applicants will be announced in early 2022.
To care for the residents in these new homes and across the province, Ontario says it is investing nearly $5 billion over four years to hire more than 27,000 long-term care staff, including nurses and personal support workers. This will help bring the province to an average of four hours of direct care per resident per day according to the government.
More information is available at ontario.ca/developingltc.
- Creating new long-term care beds and redeveloping existing older beds to modern standards is part of the Government of Ontario’s Long-Term Care Modernization Plan.
- The province is taking innovative steps to get long-term care homes built, including modernizing its funding model, selling unused lands with the requirement that long-term care homes be built on portions of the properties, and leveraging hospital-owned land to build urgently needed homes in large urban areas.
