Michele Campeau, left, visits with her mother, Ruth Poupard, 83, at Hotel-Dieu Grace Healthcare where she is recovering from a broken hip, in Windsor, Ont., on April 3, 2024.Photo by Dax Melmer/The Canadian Press

Ontario law designed to free up hospital beds tested in court

Advocacy Centre for the Elderly and the Ontario Health Coalition say Bill 7 violates the Charter of Rights and Freedoms

by · National Post

TORONTO — 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 Bed Better Care Act or Bill 7, violates the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The province disagrees.

Frederik Cyrus Roeder: Reduce wait times by allowing patients to seek care of out of countryIt’s no secret that if you need elective surgery in Canada, you’d better be prepared to wait for a very long time.Frederik Cyrus Roeder, Special to National Post, 21 Sep 2024Randall Denley: More money for doctors but no clear benefit for patientsThanks to the province’s physicians winning a big pay raise from an arbitration decision last week, the cost of doctors’ services in Ontario is going up sharply, by just under 10 per cent in one year. The deal will cost taxpayers about $1.6 billion a year. Good news for doctors, but the benefit for patients is a little more difficult to identify.Randall Denley, 19 Sep 2024