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Editorials

Information Update

July 2, 2024

SENIORS FOR SOCIAL ACTION (ONTARIO) PARTNERS WITH UNIVERSITY RESEARCHERS

Seniors for Social Action Ontario (SSAO) Joins the University of Manitoba in an Innovative Research Partnership

In June, the Board of SSAO struck an Ad Hoc Advisory Committee to provide advice to University of Manitoba researchers examining Care Poverty in Canada. The concept of care poverty was first introduced by Professor Teppo Krogen at the University of Jyväskylä in Finland.

Click here to read about this and much more

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Editorial

OUR HOSPITALS ARE IN TROUBLE:

IMPLICATIONS FOR ELDERS

May 30, 2024

Closure of the Minden Hospital

Nearly a year ago, on June 1st, 2023, after six weeks’ notice and no consultation, Haliburton Highlands Health Services (HHHS) permanently closed Minden Hospital’s Emergency Room (“Minden ER”) and took down the Blue H out front.

HHHS cited serious staffing shortages and an inability to retain health care workers as the reason (Phillips, 2023) for the closure. The Minister of Health declared it a unilateral decision, not about the money, and in the best interest of the community.

Click here to read it all

Editorial

BABY BOOMERS AND THEIR ALLIES LEAD THE CHARGE IN EXPANDING THE AGING IN PLACE MOVEMENT ACROSS ONTARIO

May 23, 2024

Baby Boomers are sick of waiting for government to act. It is time to take action ourselves if we want to continue to age gracefully in our own homes and communities. This generation of elders is answering the call all across the province to promote aging in place initiatives.

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Editorial

Keeping Care in Our Communities

The Abbeyfield Model

April 24, 2024

As we age, we frequently become less mobile, and less willing to explore, and we begin to lose friends and colleagues; and become prone to social isolation – processes that can affect our sense of purpose and well-being. This is especially so for individuals who live alone and do not have a partner to share their daily events.

While the aging-at-home movement attempts to increase support for older adults, it often fails to provide the engaging processes that we all desire. As a result, we observe individuals prematurely enter institutional long-term care facilities that further erode their autonomy and independence.

However, there are ways to structure our communities so that individuals maintain the involvement and engagement with others while receiving the instrumental support required.

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Editorial

HEALTH CARE WORKER RETENTION – IT’S NOT JUST ABOUT THE MONEY!

HOME CARE WORKER CO-OPS OFFER AN ALTERNATIVE WORKFORCE RETENTION STRATEGY

April 8, 2024

Through its workforce strategy, the Ministry of Health is attempting to lure PSW graduates with money. The Ministry is paying up to $5,440 to PSW students during their clinical placements in long-term care institutions and/or in home and community care. The Ministry is also providing $10,000.00 to recent PSW graduates, provided that they commit to work in a long-term care facility or for home and community care for a year. They will also pay $10,000.00 in relocation costs for recent PSW graduates to work in rural, remote, or northern areas for 12 months (Health Force Ontario, 2024).

This of course, disregards the fact that the Ministry has not addressed the wage gap between PSW’s working in institutions and those working in home care that the Ontario Community Support Association reports as being $4.00 per hour. Retroactive increases paid to staff in hospitals have further exacerbated wage gaps between the home care and hospital and institutional sectors.

Home and community care are unable to fill PSW and other nursing positions and struggle with a 25% staff turnover rate, resulting in home care clients receiving poor services (Ontario Community Support Association, 2023).

The Home Care Worker Co-operative Model – A Viable Staffing Alternative

Click here to read it all

Editorial

IS THIS AN APRIL FOOL’S JOKE OR ARE THE FEDERAL AND PROVINCIAL GOVERNMENTS HARD OF HEARING?

April 1, 2024

How many of us have written to, and called our MPP’s and MP’s and gotten no responses or a form response? How many have felt frustrated and angry that the people we have elected to serve us choose to ignore us except around election time? How fed up are you? Are you fed up enough to tell them when they come looking for your vote that since they couldn’t be bothered responding to you, you can’t be bothered to respond to them – that you are voting for the other candidate?

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Editorial

SOLITARY CONFINEMENT

March 18, 2024

Solitary confinement – it is a term we hear used often when it comes to prisoners, and it has disastrous psychological and physical effects. National and international organizations, experts, and concerned citizens have raised this issue repeatedly in the media (CBC News, 2022). In 2019 the Federal government passed Bill C-83 putting an end to the practice of solitary confinement in prisons (Canadian Press, 2022).

But there is another kind of solitary confinement that is equally punishing, One that is experienced by low-income, isolated seniors. We live alone (Canadian Press, 2022). Some of us have no family and, thanks to attrition, few remaining friends. Our health is failing. Many of us live with disabilities. Some of us are care-givers, supporting older parents or partners. Many more have outlived their savings. We spend almost every one of the days and nights we have left alone. Christmas, birthdays, national holidays - unacknowledged and uncelebrated. Alone.

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Editorial
MAiD AS A COST-CUTTING ALTERNATIVE TO FUNDING IN-HOME, COMMUNITY,

AND PALLIATIVE CARE

March 11, 2024

On February 12, 2024, Newsweek did a remarkable thing. It published a piece by a respected journalist about Canada’s cruelty to its elders and citizens with disabilities. That cruelty is taking the form of medical assistance in dying as an alternative to providing comprehensive health care to the end of someone’s natural life - as a cost-cutting measure.

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Information Bulletin - Partner Organization

A Message from the South East Grey Community Health Centre

February 26, 2024

Community Health Centres are one of the most overlooked resources in Ontario’s health care system and one of the best possible sponsors of in-home and medical and nursing assistance to elders.

Founded in 2011 as an interdisciplinary primary care organization South East Grey CHC provides care to over 9000 patients.

Click here to read it all

Information Bulletin - Guest Editorial

Regarding Minden Emergency Department Closure

February 12, 2024

There are many issues that affect elders' abilities to age in place. Having readily available emergency hospital care is one.

In this guest editorial by Minden Paper, a partner organization of SSAO, volunteers have spent countless hours compiling the facts of how that area lost its emergency ward and what the impact is on elders.

It serves as a warning to all other areas of Ontario of what awaits unless local citizens band together and take strong political action to protect hospital and community health resources

Click here to read it all

A PERSONAL MESSAGE TO SSAO MEMBERS

FROM THE CHAIR

February 5, 2024

In 1982 my grandmother, who came to Canada in 1938 having fled Hitler, entered a nursing home in Durham Region where she was attacked and burned. I was 34 at the time and could not believe that such a thing could happen in Canada. I could also not believe the lack of concern on the part of the government of the day, and the lack of response from the Inspection Branch. That was the beginning of my journey trying to change long-term care in Ontario.

Click here to read it all

Editorial
IT IS TIME FOR AN ADULT PROTECTIVE SERVICES SYSTEM FOR ELDERS IN ONTARIO

January 23, 2024

For decades others with disabilities have had Adult Protective Service Workers to assist and advocate for and with them. Elders have not. Older adults have been overlooked by all levels of government in almost every way when it comes to helping them to live successfully in the community. Seniors for Social Action Ontario believes it is time government took the needs of elders living in the community seriously and addressed them. This article is about yet another way that the Government of Ontario could address this. Will they listen this time?

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Editorial
HOW DO WE CONFRONT THE PANDEMIC OF LONELINESS?

December 14, 2023

Recently an article appeared in the Toronto Star stating that Toronto is one of the loneliest cities in Canada (Kopun, 2023). But Toronto is not the only place where a large number of people of all ages, but especially elders, feel lonely. Loneliness has grown to pandemic proportions in the aftermath of the COVID pandemic. Governments at all levels seem to be ignoring this reality.

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Editorial
AUSTRALIA GETS IT RIGHT ON HOME CARE

November 16, 2023

Home Care That is Client-Directed Not Client-Centered

Much is made of “client-centered” approaches in the provision of long-term care services in Ontario and Canada, but what does this really mean? It means these are still staff-controlled services with a supposed focus on the client. It raises the question of what staff were “centered” on before shifting to a “client-centered” approach.

Click here to read it all

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Editorial

WHEN SEGREGATION, EXCLUSION, AND
STIGMATIZATION SEEM LIKE A GREAT IDEA.
WHY DEMENTIA VILLAGES DO NOT CREATE
“INNOVATION” IN LONG-TERM CARE.

May 29, 2023

Preamble

Imagine for a moment “Intellectual Disability Villages” or “Cerebral Palsy Villages” or “Schizophrenia Villages”. Not your idea of an innovative concept? So why are they being touted as the solution for people living with dementia?

Segregating people, excluding them from their homes and communities and slotting them according to their disabilities is stigmatizing. This is exactly what “dementia villages” do. They are pretend villages for people with dementia where it is suggested we put people so they can be with others “just like them” out of sight out of mind of the rest of the community.

What we no longer accept for younger people with disabilities is still considered just fine for older people with disabilities by government, the long-term care industry, and the general public.
But this is far from fine.

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Editorial

IT TAKES A COMMUNITY

The Case for Municipal Support for Aging in Place

May 15, 2023

Municipalities are the frontline governments, closest to the people who elected them. As such, they are the ones who can work with their constituents to advance locally created solutions, in this case to elders’ desires to age in place.

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INFORMATION BULLETIN

LIBERAL PARTY OF CANADA ADOPTS A KEEP SENIORS AT HOME POLICY RESOLUTION BY THE SENIOR LIBERALS' COMMISSION, ENDORSED BY THE LIBERAL PARTY OF CANADA (ONTARIO)

May 8, 2023

Seniors for Social Action Ontario is very pleased to have seen this policy resolution adopted at the recent Federal Liberal Party National Convention.

Click here to read it (page 15)

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Editorial

OLDER ADULTS WITH LOW INCOMES ARE AT GREATER RISK OF HEALTH ISSUES AND INSTITUTIONALIZATION

May 1, 2023

In this editorial Seniors for Social Action Ontario addresses the plight of older adults living in poverty and discusses their risk of poor health and institutionalization with recommendations to address this problem.

With special thanks to valued SSAO member, Shoshana

Low income older adults in Ontario are receiving a small boost in GAINS payments this year, but it is not enough to keep the wolf from the door. GAINS will rise to $166 per month for single elders and to $332 a month for couples. A slight improvement – if you qualify. But not much when you consider the rise in inflation. Those trying to get by on fixed incomes right now have to choose between food, heating, and medications (CBC News, 2023). This increase is for one year and began in January, 2023 (Ontario government, 2023).

Click here to read it all

Editorial

WELCOME TO THE GULAG: ONTARIO’S

REGRESSIVE LONG-TERM CARE POLICIES

February 20, 2023

"The Gulag is the place where people disappear. It may have “care and protection” spelled out in friendly script on the sign outside its gates, but inside those gates, the rules of order and efficiency prevail. As Harriet McBride Johnson declared, people don’t vanish into the Gulag because that’s what they want or need. They vanish because that is what their government offers: “You make your choice from an array of one.”

(Catherine Frazee, former Chief Commissioner of the Ontario Human Rights Commission)

All across the world, developed countries are shunning institutions as a way to care for anyone, much less older adults and people with disabilities. Mass institutionalization and exclusion of elders from their home communities and segregation in institutions is now recognized as a human rights issue

(United Nations, 2023).

Click here to read it all

VOLUNTARY NATIONAL STANDARDS IN LONG TERM CARE?

IS THIS THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT’S IDEA OF A SICK JOKE?

February 6, 2023

Those of us who are in our 70’s and 80’s have all heard it before dozens of times over the past four decades. This government is going to clean up long-term care. This time, it is the Federal government that is going to clean up long-term care - with VOLUNTARY standards??

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Editorial

The Need for a Universal Design Standard in Canada’s Building Code

January 16, 2023

Will Canada adopt the Universal Design Standard?

Australia’s Building Code Board has recently adopted a “livable housing design standard (Commonwealth of Australia, 2017; National Construction Code, 2022). New houses and apartments will now be accessible for all, including seniors and persons with disabilities, because livable or universal design is no longer merely a recommendation. It is a requirement.

Click here to read it all

Guest Editorial

Reimagining Dementia

January 9, 2023

In this special guest editorial, Mary Fridley, Co-ordinator of Reimagining Dementia: A Creative Coalition for Justice, discusses some important topics related to aging, stigmatization, and dementia. SSAO is proud to be partnered with Mary and Reimagining Dementia in an international movement that is taking shape to challenge the tragedy narrative all too common today. It is time to begin to see aging, dementia, and a host of other conditions as part of life - not reasons to exclude, isolate, or dehumanize.

Click here to read it all

Editorial

ABANDONING THE TRAGEDY NARRATIVE

December 19, 2022

We are never too old to continue to learn, and last week some of us were fortunate to have learned something important in a meeting with someone who is a visionary – breaking down the stereotypes of what it means to be old, what it means to have dementia, what it means to be “different”.

Click here to read it all

Editorial

AGEISM AND ITS IMPACT

December 12, 2022

Ageism underpins many of the current dysfunctional approaches in elder care in Ontario. The voices, choices, and engagement of elders are neither respected nor valued by decision makers and by many in the public.

We believe that ageism requires deep reflection, because it tends to seep into policies, practices, and everyday life.

Click here to read it all

Editorial

A NICE BUCKET OF SUDS:

HOW COULD THE FORD GOVERNMENT GET OUT OF THE MESS IT HAS MADE IN LONG-TERM CARE?

November 28, 2022

Oliver Hardy of Laurel and Hardy fame put it well in the 1940 movie Saps at Sea – “here’s another nice bucket of suds you’ve gotten me into”.

It seems the current government has gotten elders and Ontario taxpayers into a nice bucket of suds as well, investing over $6 billion of our money in long-term care institutions (Ontario Government, 2022) rather than in-home and community care.

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THIS REMEMBRANCE DAY

LET’S SHOW SOME REAL RESPECT

November 10, 2022

Our veterans fought valiantly for this country. They gave their all to serve in combat and in peacekeeping. They have served us when there have been natural disasters and when residents were in distress in long-term care facilities. They have always been there when we needed them. But are we there for them?

Click here to read it all

Editorial

Time to Transform Elder Care

John Lord

November 7, 2022

This article first appeared as an op-ed in the Waterloo Region Record on November 4, 2022.

https://www.therecord.com/opinion/2022/11/03/our-elders-do-not-need-more-of-the-same-system-we-already-have.html

Click here to read it all

Editorial

BUT DON’T WE NEED SOME INSTITUTIONS?

SSAO RESPONDS

October 31, 2022

Because Ontario has focused so heavily on institutions for older adults, there are many who believe that we cannot do without them, or that it will take forever to move away from an institutional model to a community-based one. If you are older, you may believe that nothing different can happen in your lifetime. But you may be surprised.

WHY IS SSAO ADVOCATING LESS RELIANCE ON INSTITUTIONS?

Click here to read it all

Guest Editorial

Addressing the Costs of Caring:
Responding to Caregiver Financial Distress

October 24, 2022

Caregiver financial distress is a significant issue in Ontario leading to caregiver burnout and unnecessarily high rates of institutionalization of elders and people with disabilities.

In this guest editorial, Lauren Bates of the Ontario Caregiver Coalition, provides the details, and discusses how we can all help.

Click here to read it

Editorial

THE IMPACT OF FORCIBLE TRANSFERS–
ONTARIO CITIZENS LIVING IN FEAR

October 3, 2022

Help.

It was all 62 year old Deana Henry, who lives with Multiple Sclerosis and severe diabetes could manage to say after she was moved, against her wishes, from hospital to Extendicare’s West End Villa in Ottawa (Charron, 2022).

The Ottawa hospital was given oversight of West End Villa and another Extendicare facility, Laurier Manor, during the pandemic to assist with a major COVID outbreak (Goodwin, 2020). West End Villa had 87 COVID cases and 11 deaths (CBC News, 2020).

Click here to read it all

Editorial

ARE HOSPITALS A RISK TO PEOPLE WITH DEMENTIA?

October 17, 2022

Older adults living with dementia are 6 times more likely to be institutionalized in a long-term care facility if their initial assessments to determine their eligibility are done in a hospital than if they are assessed somewhere else. 61% of older adults with dementia live at home (Canadian Institute for Health Information (CIHI), 2022).

Click here to read it all

Editorial

WHO’S ON FIRST?

September 26, 2022

The Ontario government has taken the draconian step of passing Bill 7 using its majority in order for hospitals to be able to force alternate level of care (ALC) patients into long-term care institutions 70-150 kilometres from their homes and natural support systems. These patients and their families must also pay for them to be transported against their will.

Bill 7 has also eliminated the usual rights afforded others with respect to privacy of personal health information. It can now be sent to a facility without their consent.

The arbitrary and indefensible nature of this Bill raises an important question – whose idea was this? There is some evidence that the idea was not entirely the Ford government’s (Ontario Government Bill 7, 2022).

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Editorial

ONTARIO GOVERNMENT POLICY IS AGEIST AND TARGETS THE MOST VULNERABLE PATIENTS IN HOSPITALS

August 25, 2022

“If somebody refuses to move into a home, if they refuse to move into their home of preferred choice, should a hospital charge them? Absolutely. We need those spaces for patients who need acute care. We need them for surgery. We need them for our emergency rooms.” (Paul Calandra, Globe and Mail, August 24, 2022).

Click here to read it all

Guest Editorial

FIRST-PAST-THE-POST IS A BARRIER

TO FIXING OUR LONG-TERM CARE SYSTEM

©Anita Nickerson, Executive Director, Fair Vote Canada

August 2, 2022

The care options seniors need as they age are painfully at odds with what is currently on offer in Ontario’s long-term care system.
It’s hard to overstate our collective aversion to being looked after in a nursing home:

92% of females and 93% of males over age 65 don’t want to end up in Ontario’s long-term care homes.
48% of those over age 55 agree that they actually “dread” the thought of themselves or a loved one having to move into long-term care.
59% say they will do anything they can to avoid themselves or their loved ones ending up there.

Click here to read it all

Editorial

HUMAN RIGHTS WITH NO EXPIRY DATE

July 25, 2022

Older adults are devalued in the eyes of a society that focuses primarily on their deficits. Labels like “high acuity” are used repeatedly in describing elders. Seldom do we hear of the many contributions older adults make, and have made to Canadian society.

This is in stark contrast to the way that others who require personal support are viewed. When speaking of younger people with disabilities we often hear of their “strengths” and “gifts”- a discourse rightly focused on their value to society. A deficit focus is considered to be detrimental. Rights to inclusion and full citizenship are foundational principles in the disability rights movement.

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Editorial

LESSONS NOT LEARNED BY THE ONTARIO GOVERNMENT: ANOTHER COVID WAVE HITS LONG-TERM CARE

July 18, 2022

Once again, 65 long-term care institutions are in outbreak in a 7th COVID wave, as well as 51 retirement homes. People 80+ are being hit especially hard (Pasieka, 2022).

Seniors for Social Action Ontario (SSAO) predicted this, telling the Ford government in 2020 to listen to older adults and invest in community-based in-home and residential alternatives and end its reliance on institutions.

In the past two years SSAO has written extensively about alternatives – both in-home and residential, that could have been created. Instead the Ontario government thought it could build its way out of the long-term care crisis by institutionalizing at least 30,000 more older adults.

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Editorial

TAKING MATTERS INTO OUR OWN HANDS -

AN AGENDA FOR LOCAL ACTION!

In the aftermath of the Ontario election, several things have become clear.

Ontario had the lowest election turnout in its history with only 4.6 million of 10.7 million eligible voters actually casting a ballot. That is a 43% voter turnout (Rodriques, 2022).

The result of this low voter turnout and a popular vote for the PC’s of only 40.84% (of the 43% who voted) was a majority government. A 40.84% vote for the PC’s translated to 66.9% - 83 of the seats necessary to form a government.

The NDP’s 23.7% of the vote translated to 25% - 31 of the seats.

The Liberal’s 23.9% of the vote translated to only 6.5% - 8 of the seats - depriving them of official party status in the Ontario Legislature. This means that they are unable to effectively represent almost 24% of voters (Fair Vote Canada, 2022). .....

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INFORMATION BULLETIN

FEDERAL AGE WELL AT HOME INITIATIVE

This month the Federal Minister of Seniors, Kamal Khera, announced the Age Well at Home initiative. It signals the beginning of a change in direction by the Federal government and an acknowledgement that older adults wish to age in place.

Click here to read it all

ADVOCACY INFORMATION BULLETIN

LONG-TERM CARE FACILITIES

Seniors for Social Action Ontario (SSAO) is receiving communications from members about serious care and safety-related issues in long-term care institutions. When a loved one is in jeopardy in one of these facilities it is difficult to know where to turn for assistance. This bulletin is provided to assist members who may find themselves in this situation.

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Information Bulletin

CAN YOU BE FORCED TO PAY A CO-PAYMENT BY HOSPITALS IF YOU ARE AN ALTERNATE LEVEL CARE PATIENT?

Many families are being forced to place loved ones in long-term care institutions when the first available bed comes up. They are told they will be required to pay steep hospital fees if they do not accept the bed. But is this true?

Here is what the Ministry of Health has to say.

Click here to read it all

Editorial

Home Care Crisis in Ontario

Home care is an essential part of elder care and is a critically important approach to allowing people to age in place. Most elders expect to and hope to remain at home as they age. And home care is a good investment for governments because it is far less costly than hospitalization or long-term care.

Unfortunately, home care in Ontario is in crisis. The Ford government is so intent on pouring money into long-term care institutions that the quality and quantity of home care is in dire straits.

Vulnerable people in Ontario are the ones suffering. ......

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Editorial

A Home for Mom and Dad

We are all aware of the abysmal state of eldercare in Ontario, where home care is minimal, where attempting to support aging parents is often overwhelming for families, and where the absence of other choices forces thousands of old people into long term care institutions.

We know that a system that is based primarily on institutions (most of which are operated for profit) cannot provide elderly people with the support they require to have a good life. ..........

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Editorial

A TRANSFORMATIVE VISION FOR LONG TERM CARE IN ONTARIO

Christine McMillan is 91 years old, has a wealth of real world experience, and founded OASIS along with Brian Brophy while President of Frontenac Kingston Council on Aging. OASIS is a naturally occurring retirement community located in an apartment building owned by Homestead Landholding Inc. Hers and Brian’s intent was to build a community of tenants and introduce a program that would include formal and informal social events, exercise programs, guest speakers, skill sharing and other projects as well as affordably priced congregate dining. An onsite coordinator would help tenants to access community supports as their needs changed..........

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Editorial

Creating Change in an Entrenched

Long-Term Care System: Lessons from the Past

How to make significant change in long-term care is a huge challenge. Long- term care in Ontario has been entrenched for over 40 years, even though older adults do not aspire to be institutionalized. This entrenched system has withstood numerous scathing reports and inquiries, including the recent Commission Report, and yet little has changed. Most people would agree that this is a broken system.

Neither the federal government nor the provinces are showing the kind of leadership we need. The recent Commission Report fails to recommend alternatives that could have made a significant difference to the lives of our vulnerable elders. Also, advocacy for change remains limited and divided.

So how can an entrenched system like this be changed? .........

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PUBLIC STATEMENT SUPPORTING DISABILITY RIGHTS ORGANIZATIONS CONCERNING A CRITICAL CARE TRIAGE PROTOCOL

Issued by:

Seniors for Social Action Ontario

November 30, 2020

EARLY RECOMMENDATIONS FROM THE ONTARIO COMMISSION ON LTC AND THE PANDEMIC DEAL WITH SYMPTOMS NOT CAUSES

In an attempt to bind the wound the Commission has bypassed the cure

October 23, 2020

SENIORS FOR SOCIAL ACTION ONTARIO (SSAO) STRONGLY SUPPORTS BILL 196, which would create a Senior’s Advocate Office

October 14, 2020

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