Health committee  For sure, there's no question that, as we've heard from a number of people, the older you get, the more vulnerable you can be to a number of these scams, not because you're not smart or capable but because they take advantage of what might be areas where you don't have the expert

Health committee  In terms of long-term residential care, both those who are inside and those who are outside the home, and Isobel was stressing this, are suffering a great deal from fear and isolation. Even if you're in a long-term care home, you're suffering from isolation. I want to go back t

Health committee  Others might be better able to answer that question about fraud and misinformation than I am.

Health committee  We set that out in the report, I think, to some extent. It certainly should establish the conditions of work, which would include things like staffing, wages and benefits. Obviously, you don't set out the specifics, but you set out the standards and how you have to, for example,

Health committee  Yes. If we understand access, as it says in the Canada Health Act, there's a broader definition of access of not simply financial, although financial is there, but it also includes actually having the facilities there. We haven't pursued that a lot. Yes, I would certainly includ

Health committee  I think there's research indicating patterns. Of course, there are some good for-profit homes. There are some bad municipal homes even, or not-for-profit homes, but the pattern is clear that there tends to be lower staffing in for-profit. There tends to be more reliance on part-t

Health committee  Staffing has been identified in report after report, not just in terms of numbers but also in terms of training and distribution. If we'd had adequate staffing levels to start with, we wouldn't have had the kind of desperation that we've seen. If we'd had full-time jobs, we woul

Health committee  In terms of the federal role, I think they need to put in money, but it needs to be money with conditions. I think it could be in a parallel piece of legislation to the Canada Health Act. I don't want to open the Canada Health Act. I think the Canada Health Act is a brilliant pie

Health committee  I think it is complicated and I think, as several people have said, we will perhaps not know how complicated until this is all over. Obviously there wasn't enough preparedness in spite of what we saw in the SARS Commission report, which did say we should stockpile for a future pa

Health committee  Staffing and the conditions of work have to be at the top. As we look at what's happening, and as we heard about B.C. in terms of the strategies that were taken early to address this, we see it's about staffing. We've known for a very long time that we need more staff. I can't te

Health committee  Thank you for the opportunity to appear on this critical issue. In the 1980s, the Ontario Pay Equity Commission asked me to study the health sector to see who would be missing from the legislation, a request that began my research into long-term residential care, or what are mos