Page - 451 - in VULNERABLE - The Law, Policy and Ethics of COVID-19

451Privatization and COVID-19: A Deadly Combination for Nursing Homes of the care once provided in hospitals must now be provided in nursing homes. Paralleling these reforms is population aging. Although most older people are in reasonable health and can continue to live at home, a significant proportion are surviving with multiple, severe chronic conditions that require skilled support of the kind provided in nurs- ing homes. The number of beds available has not kept up with the verified need. One indicator is wait times for admission. For example, once a person qualifies as needing 24-hour care, the median wait time for being offered a place in Ontario is over 150 days.5 The care deficits that remain cause many to seek private care. Not only does homecare shift significant costs and work to individu- als and families, those who cannot get into a nursing home have to pay a retirement home anywhere “. . . from $3,000 to roughly $7,000 a month for basic care. These numbers can easily climb another $1,000 to $3,000 a month as extra care is required.”6 Within nursing homes residents are paying for more of their services, such as physiotherapy and foot care,7 and a growing number of families are paying for pri- vate companions for their relatives in order to make up for care gaps.8 For-Profit Privatization in Nursing Home Care The shifts in responsibility, costs, and care work in nursing homes have been accompanied by a troubling trend towards for-profit chain own- ership, especially in the big provinces. For example, between 2010 and 2016, Alberta lost 335 beds in public facilities while 3,255 were added in for-profit ones. By 2016, 43% of the beds were in for-profit facilities.9 5. Health Quality Ontario, Long-Term  Care  Home  Wait  Times  in  Ontario  (Ottawa: Health Quality Ontario, last visited 28 April 2020), online: Health  Quality  Ontario <https://www.hqontario.ca/System-Performance/Long-Term-Care-Home- Performance/Wait-Times>. 6. Ted Rechtshaffen, “Here’s What it Costs to Live in a Retirement Home — And the Bottom Line is Less Than You Might Think”, Financial Post (13 March 2019), online: <https://business.financialpost.com/personal-finance/retirement/heres-what-it- costs-to-live-in-a-retirement-home-and-the-bottom-line-is-less-than-you-might- think>. 7. MacDonald, supra note 4. 8. Tamara Daly, Pat Armstrong & Ruth Lowndes, “Liminality in Ontario’s Long- Term Care Facilities: Private Companions’ Care Work in the Space ‘Betwixt and Between’” (2015) 19:3 Competition & Change 246. 9. David Campanella, Losing  Ground:  Alberta’s  Residential  Elder  Care  Crisis (Edmonton: Parkland Institute, 2016) at 11.