Hospital CEO explains when Bill 7 policy is used

A physician through an assessment process will determine if a patient requires a different level of care but no longer requires a hospital bed. And so that discussion then, you know, leads into where is mom or dad or loved one going to go. And typically it’s a conversation around community living, long term care, seniors, residents, retirement residents. There’s a lot of really important options out there. But what you and I are talking about is long term care for this case and what happens is during this discharge planning process. An eligibility assessment is done so there’s medical and clinical decision making processes that determines, for example, that Bill Maher, the patient, no longer requires a hospital bed, but he does require an alternative level of care, which is long term care in my case. Once that happens, there’s led to the language and the legislation requires that home and community care works with the patient and their family to select their choices. And home and community care is part of the province of Ontario, they’re part of Ontario Health, so they will pick a number of homes. Home and Community Care also has the option to add one or two to that list as well, because the goal is to get that patient out of the bed because of the demand for hospital beds that we’re all very familiar with, and get them and get that person into the proper location that meets their needs, the family can either accept or reject the first available option that’s available off that list, right? Or the ones that Home and Community Care chooses if the home that they decide to be in is not available and another one is offered and they reject it. That’s when we’re required to follow the legislative requirements, which is having a conversation with the family, talking about the fact that we have to charge a $400.00 per day per diem in order to cover costs and it only covers portion of the cost. But the reality is this is not about cost recovery. This is not about a punitive measure, Jennifer the the legislation was established to ensure that if someone’s in a hospital bed, they need to be there.