Roughly 10% of long-term care homes in Windsor-Essex received annual proactive inspection so far

Nearly a year after the provincial government committed to boosting oversight in long-term care facilities, just a fraction of the homes across Ontario have received the type of thorough inspection promised.

In October 2021, the provincial government allocated $20 million to the long-term care sector and announced the launch of a proactive inspection program. It also said it would hire 193 inspectors by fall 2022. 

At the time, a media release from the province said the inspection program, "will assist the government and long-term care homes in identifying and resolving problems to improve the quality of care provided to residents." 

To date, the Ministry of Long-term Care told CBC News in an email that it has performed 58 proactive inspections of the 627 long-term care homes in Ontario and hired 104 inspectors.

In Windsor-Essex, two of 19 long-term care homes — Regency Park Nursing Home in Windsor and The Leamington Mennonite Home in Leamington — have been proactively inspected since October 2021. 

Shirley Roebuck is on the board of directors for the Ontario Health Coalition, a non-profit organization that advocates for improvements to the health-care system. 

"Something is wrong, isn't it, if they've added 100 more inspectors and yet nothing has changed," Roebuck said. 

"We believe that these inspections are critical to the care that the elderly receives. When you speak about a business or businesses whose priority is profit, you have to have some way to ensure that they are delivering the care that they tell people they're going to be delivering and we've seen that that hasn't been the case during the COVID-19 epidemic." 

In an email, a spokesperson for the Ministry of Long-Term Care said it is working toward completing one proactive inspection in each home annually. 

"The ministry takes the safety and well-being of residents in long-term care seriously," the ministry said. 

"However, proactive inspections are not the only inspections carried out by the ministry. In order to protect the safety and welfare of long-term care residents, the ministry also carries out inspections in situations where concerns or complaints have been raised."

The province's latest long-term care legislation, the Fixing Long-Term Care Act 2021, states that every home must be inspected at least once a year — though it doesn't specify that this needs to be a proactive inspection. 

Other types of inspections a home can receive include critical incident, complaint and follow-up, among others. 

The act also states that inspections are to be unannounced.