{"id":251147,"date":"2025-10-30T23:49:18","date_gmt":"2025-10-30T23:49:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/251147\/"},"modified":"2025-10-30T23:49:18","modified_gmt":"2025-10-30T23:49:18","slug":"ontario-25000-beds-short-of-30000-new-long-term-care-bed-goal-fao","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/251147\/","title":{"rendered":"Ontario 25,000 beds short of 30,000 new long-term-care bed goal: FAO"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Ford government is so far off track toward its goal of building 30,000 new long-term care beds over 10 years that it will have to build about 25,000 of them in the last year of that promise in order to meet the goal, according to analysis from the province\u2019s budget watchdog.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Ontario\u2019s Financial Accountability Office (FAO) released a report last weekend examining the province\u2019s spending plans in health and long-term care.<\/p>\n

It found that there were 79,212 long-term care beds in Ontario in 2024-25 \u2014 up only 1,195 beds since the Ford government came to power in 2018, promising an ambitious plan to build 30,000 new beds over ten years.<\/p>\n

The FAO projected, based on the government\u2019s internal spending plans, that the province will only reach 83,488 beds two years from now, in the 2027-28 fiscal year.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s 4,276 of the 30,000-bed goal \u2014 and the province would only have one year left to reach 30,000 on time.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo hit the province’s target of 30,000 net new LTC beds, the government needs to build an additional 24,529 LTC beds in 2028,\u201d the FAO said in a statement.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\"Made <\/a><\/p>\n

Long-Term Care Minister Natalia Kusendova-Bashta didn\u2019t dispute the FAO\u2019s conclusions.<\/p>\n

She told The Trillium that she hopes that long-term care \u201cprojects that were stuck in the pipeline\u201d before will be able to move forward with the new funding formula announced in the spring budget, which the government says is more flexible and more generous.<\/p>\n

Her ministry is conducting a \u201creaffirmation survey\u201d among project proponents to ask whether or not they will be able to proceed under the new formula.<\/p>\n

Asked if she believes the province will meet its 30,000-new-bed goal, she replied, \u201cWell, let’s see what the reaffirmation survey says.\u201d<\/p>\n

She also touted the government\u2019s progress on redeveloping old long-term care homes and progress toward redeveloping 58,000 long-term care beds in older buildings.<\/p>\n

Despite the long-term care construction that has taken place, as each year passes, there are fewer long-term care beds on a per-capita basis in Ontario, according to the FAO.<\/p>\n

The FAO examined the rate of LTC beds per 1,000 Ontario seniors aged 75-plus, and found it has been falling over the past decade.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\"Made <\/a><\/p>\n

While\u00a0the FAO has found that the rate of long-term care beds per 1,000 Ontarians aged 75-plus is expected to fall to 56 in 2027-28, it also previously found that, even if the province meets its goal of 30,000 new beds by 2028-29, it will still mean fewer long-term care beds on a per-capita than when the PCs came to power, falling from 74 beds per 1,000 Ontarians aged 75-plus in 2018-19 to 70 beds a decade later.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s a major concern for NDP long-term care critic Wayne Gates.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt’s very, very disappointing, and it’s really going to hurt our seniors,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Beyond his concern for seniors themselves, Gates said that when there aren\u2019t enough long-term care beds, seniors end up stuck in hospitals as \u201calternative level of care\u201d patients because they don\u2019t have a safe place to be discharged to.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt’s hurting the system,\u201d he said. \u201cOur nurses are burned out. Our emergency rooms are burned out. We have people in the hallways. We have worse hallway medicine today than we had under a really bad Liberal government.\u201d<\/p>\n

The NDP has called on the government to support non-profit homes, which Gates said provided better care during the pandemic<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Liberal long-term care critic Tyler Watt said the FAO\u2019s numbers show \u201cjust another example of all talk and very little action from this government.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt paints a pretty bleak picture on the state of long term care,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Watt worked as a nurse in long-term care at the outset of the pandemic and said that shaped his view that Ontario needs to do much more for seniors than just build new homes.<\/p>\n

\u201cI just think that seniors deserve a quality of life when it comes to long-term care, it’s unfortunately become way too much like a warehouse,\u201d he said, adding the government must also improve its homecare system so seniors can stay in their homes longer.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey’ve worked so hard their whole lives,\u201d he said. \u201cThey deserve to have a safe space and deserve to be taken care of.\u201d<\/p>\n

Editor’s note: This story was updated after its initial publication with a more up-to-date figure from the FAO on the number of LTC beds per 1,000 Ontarians aged 75-plus if the province meets its goal of building 30,000 new long-term care beds by 2028-29.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Ford government is so far off track toward its goal of building 30,000 new long-term care beds…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":251148,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[49,48,117285,84,392,117284],"class_list":{"0":"post-251147","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-healthcare","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-financial-accountability-office-fao","11":"tag-health","12":"tag-healthcare","13":"tag-long-term-carelong-term-care-bedsfinancial-accountability-office-faolong-term-care-beds-goal-report"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/251147","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=251147"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/251147\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/251148"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=251147"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=251147"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=251147"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}