Issue #24: Infrastructure Investment and Upgrades

More long-term care residences will be needed to meet the needs of Canada’s aging population, even with robust investment in home care. New federal, provincial and municipal investments must be made in the creation of new residences. New residences should not be institutional. Retrofitting current older long-term care residences or redeveloping other existing housing assets will also be needed to raise the standard of acceptable living for residents and to improve the health and social well-being of Canadian seniors needing long-term care.

Recommendation #81: Build More Long-Term Care Homes

Canada urgently needs to build more long-term care homes to support our increasingly frail older adult population who cannot have their care needs met in the community.

Recommendation #82: Build More Smaller Residences, Dementia Villages, and Streamline Campus-of-Care Regulation

Invest in creating smaller residences with approximately 10-25 residents. Create new dementia villages rather than large institutional long-term care homes. Change and modernize long-term care, assisted living, and independent living regulations allowing for campus-of-care models to more easily function. Currently, campus-of-care homes are often subject to upwards of four forms of health and housing regulation resulting in blockages to aging in place.

Recommendation #83: Single or Couples Rooms with En Suite Bathrooms

Retrofit older long-term care homes and build new ones with the following: one-bedrooms with en-suite bathrooms, along with some couples’ rooms with en-suite bathrooms. Avoid shared or ward rooms with shared bathing facilities. Long-term care homes should increase privacy, dignity, and quality of life, while reducing the risk of infection spreading via shared facilities.

Recommendation #84: Rural, Remote, Northern, and Indigenous Long-Term Care

Expand long-term care options in remote and Indigenous communities. Develop specific dementia care capacity in these communities, especially in Indigenous communities to prevent losing a generation of elders to urban centres – often the same generation who were taken from their homes and into Residential Schools.