'I'm not paying it': Family furious over $400 a day hospital fine for not moving to LTC
CBC
A few weeks ago, Michele Campeau faced what seemed like an impossible decision: move her mom from a hospital bed to a long-term care home the family hated or pay $400 a day to remain at the health-care facility.
Campeau chose neither — the family has been racking up a monster bill since March 11 that remains unpaid while her mother has stayed on at a Windsor, Ont., hospital.
Campeau's mother is among those caught up in a law that allows hospitals to place discharged patients into long-term care homes not of their choosing in order to free up beds. Should patients refuse the move, they face a $400 per day charge to remain at the hospital.
"I'm not too worried about it because I'm not paying it," Campeau told The Canadian Press.
The law, known as Bill 7, was passed by the Doug Ford government in the fall of 2022 in an effort to open up much-needed hospital space. It is aimed at so-called alternate level of care patients who are discharged from hospital but need a long-term care bed and don't have one yet.
This comes after the Ontario government confirmed to CBC News for the first time that seven people had been charged fees in relation to Bill 7.
WATCH | Her loved one was charged under Bill 7. Here's what she says the process was like:
Hospitals can send patients to nursing homes not of their choosing up to 70 kilometres away, or up to 150 kilometres away in northern Ontario, if spaces open up there first.
For Campeau and her 83-year-old mother Ruth Poupard, the last few months had already been overwhelmingly stressful, even before the Bill 7 drama began.
Poupard lived through cancer, a heart valve transplant and the onset of dementia over the past few years. She moved in with Campeau who took care of her and has power of attorney for her mother.
Over the last year, Poupard's dementia deepened, her daughter said.
Two days after Christmas, Poupard hallucinated during the night, fell and broke her hip. Campeau rushed her to hospital where she ended up having surgery. Poupard was later moved to the Hôtel-Dieu Grace hospital in Windsor for rehabilitation.
On Feb. 21, Poupard's attending physician discharged her, determining she no longer needed the hospital's specialized care. By then, Campeau and her brother decided their mother needed more care than they could provide.
"We decided that it's time for long term care," she said.
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