Ontario’s long-term care inspection system was totally overwhelmed during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, and the ministry overseeing care homes was caught unprepared and unable to ensure the safety of residents and staff, the province’s ombudsman says.
In the report issued Thursday, Ombudsman Paul Dubé revealed there were no inspections of long-term care homes in the province for seven weeks in the spring of 2020, and no inspection reports issued for two months.
“To effectively oversee a system, you have to have inspections,” Dubé said at a Thursday morning news conference. “It was already strained before the pandemic, and it was
