Controversial law designed to free up hospital beds to be tested in Ontario court

A new charter challenge set to get underway on Monday will test the constitutionality of a controversial Ontario law that allows hospitals to place discharged patients into long-term care homes not of their choosing or face a $400-per-day charge if they refuse.

The Advocacy Centre for the Elderly and the Ontario Health Coalition argues the law, known as the More Beds Better Care Act or Bill 7, violates the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

The province disagrees.

One core item the court will address is whether the new law has fulfilled its purpose by improving the flow of patients. Documents filed with court reveal the two sides have reached different conclusions on that question.

Premier Doug Ford's government rammed Bill 7 through the legislature within days in September 2022, bypassing public hearings.

The law allows hospital placement coordinators to choose a nursing home for a patient who has been deemed by a doctor as requiring an "alternate level of care," or ALC, without consent.

They can also share the patient's health information to such homes without consent. Patients can also be sent to nursing homes up to 70 kilometres from their preferred spot in southern Ontario and up to 150 kilometres away in northern Ontario. The law sparked outrage among seniors.

In its factum filed with court, the organizations opposing Bill 7 say it has not had its intended effect of reducing the number of so-called ALC patients. They point to government data from Ontario Health that shows the number of these patients has actually increased by 30 per cent more than a year after the law took effect.

There were about 2,300 discharged patients waiting in hospital for a spot in a nursing home at the end of January, the court documents say.

"The evidence belies any contention that Bill 7 has actually expedited the transition from hospital for the vast majority of ALC-LTC patients," the organizations say.

The primary reason for the bottleneck is not the patients fault, they say.

"The most significant cause of delay in transitioning from the hospital is simply the lack of long-term care beds as evidenced by the very long wait lists for admissions particularly for homes that provide better and more suitable care," the organizations wrote.

Because the law is ineffective, they argue, it is arbitrary. They say the law should be struck down.

Ontario argues the increased number of so-called ALC patients is not proof of the law's ineffectiveness, but due to a spike in population growth.