The Need for National Standards for Long-Term Care

Many difficult but necessary lessons must be learned as we experience the trauma of the pandemic. None are clearer and more pressing than the need to do better for older adults in long-term care.

We should never repeat the experience of facilities scrambling to cope, with overburdened staff, poor planning and inadequate facilities and supplies. It did not need to happen. As stated tellingly in the recent report by Ontario’s Long-Term Care COVID-19 Commission:

“The province’s lack of pandemic preparedness and the poor state of the long-term care sector were apparent for many years to policymakers, advocates and anyone else who wished to see.”

Ontario is not unique. This is a national problem. Our current patchwork of voluntary standards for long-term care homes is inadequate. It is a powerful argument for national standards, which must be adopted as widely as possible.

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