This City of London care home is celebrating a win. Can for-profit facilities share the same success?

The Dearness Home in London, Ont., is celebrating a win few other long-term care (LTC) facilities in the province can claim, and it's renewing discussions around the disparity between for-profit and municipally run homes.

The 243-bed facility in London's south end recently received a three-year accreditation from the Commission on Accreditation of Rehabilitation Facilities (CARF) Canada, one of two accrediting bodies recognized by the Ontario government.

According to the City of London, just three per cent of care homes that apply for accreditation through CARF achieve that standing.

"It's the winning model," said Vivian Stamatopoulos, a long-term care researcher who teaches in the faculty of social science and humanities at Ontario Tech University in Oshawa. "Residents do better, the staff do better, staff are paid better, staff have better working conditions, they're more likely to be unionized."

Like all LTC homes in Ontario, the Dearness Home receives funding from the province and residents' fees. But unlike most facilities, Dearness is owned and operated by the city, and in 2023, it will receive $6.1 million from the municipality.

The Dearness Home opened in 1954 and moved to its current location in 2005, after the provincial government provided funding for a facility upgrade.

"We have that additional funding from the local taxpayer and that enables us to do more," said Leslie Hancock, Dearness's long-term care director. Staff are also paid more than the average employee at a for-profit facility, he said.

About 350 staff are employed at Dearness, and some of them have been at the facility for several decades, said Hancock. A construction crew is also currently on site working on a new $2.3-million auditorium.

The facility's wait list is in the hundreds, said Hancock.

"It was not my wish to ever be in a place like this," said resident Shirley MacGregor, 88, who moved in four months ago after a fall in her kitchen left her unable to care for herself.

"I wasn't sure what I was coming to," MacGregor recalled. "I walked in the door — or I didn't walk — I came in the door and I looked at the place, and I said I think it's going to be OK."

In fact, MacGregor said, her whole life has changed since she arrived.

"I think I'm a late bloomer because I have talked, I have laughed, I have joked. I can't believe what I'm doing, all in the last four months.

"It's turned my life totally around," she said.

WATCH | Shirley MacGregor says a London care home turned her life around:

Shirley MacGregor says a London care home turned her life around

1 day ago

Duration 1:12

Shirley MacGregor, 88, moved into the City of London's Dearness Home four months ago after a fall in her kitchen left her unable to care for herself.

Success during pandemic

The Dearness Home weathered the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic without any resident deaths, but as the virus evolved and became more transmissible, the facility has been forced to manage ongoing outbreaks, said Hancock.

But according to Stamatopoulos, the evidence shows municipally run homes have fared better overall.

"We have clear data on the overrepresentation of deaths and COVID infections in the for-profit facilities," said Stamatopoulos, who points to fewer staff, less pay and fewer hours of direct care.

"The end result is just a revolving door of workers in these facilities."

A study released in July 2020, a few months after the WHO declared COVID-19 a global pandemic, indicated that for-profit long-term care homes in Ontario saw significantly worse outbreaks of the virus and more related deaths than their non-profit or municipally run counterparts. The paper was published in the peer-reviewed Canadian Medical Association Journal (CMAJ).

To continue to fuel transformative change, we must ensure long-term care homes have the staff they need to provide high-quality care.

– Donna Duncan, CEO, Ontario Long-Term Care Association

This week, at Ottawa's request, the Health Standards Organization (HSO) published 60 pages of new voluntary standards to improve the quality of care in LTC homes across Canada.

"We will review the new voluntary standards which have just been published to see if there are any recommendations that are not already in place," said a spokesperson with the City of London.

"Dearness Home is a high-quality facility that is inspected by the government and surveyed by CARF. In the recent accreditation process, Dearness Home met or exceeded 1,500 best-practice standards."

In a statement, the Ontario Long Term Care Association (OLTCA) — which represents both public and private homes — said the new Canadian long-term care standards "reflect the transformative changes already undertaken by the provincial government in Ontario."

But the system is dealing with a severe staffing shortage, said Donna Duncan, chief executive officer of the OLTCA.

"To continue to fuel transformative change, we must ensure long-term care homes have the staff they need to provide high-quality care."