Reaction
Public health not right fit
for compliance
OMNI leaders say inconsistency
of standards a concern
Tuesday December 9, 2003 John Driscoll
Replacing compliance advisors with public health inspectors doesn’t make sense, say administrators of two OMNI homes and OMNI's CEO Fraser Wilson.

Health Minister George Smitherman is considering turning over home inspections to public health inspectors, according to a Toronto Star article Monday.

Smitherman was reacting to a Star series critical of the nursing home system in Ontario, based on nursing home data compiled by the Ministry.

“I see the need for changes in the system but I can’t endorse going from long-term care to public health for enforcement,” OMNI's CEO Fraser Wilson says. “That change would be like throwing out the baby with the bath water,” he says.

“It would take time to get public health inspectors up to speed on long-term care,” Fraser says. “I believe improvements, including accountability, can be made working within the system.”

One of the current challenges is inconsistency in the application of standards, and bringing in public health inspectors would aggravate that, Fraser says. There are far more public health offices in the province than compliance offices and each has jurisdiction over a geographic area, he points out. This would lead to more inconsistencies in the application of standards and far more confusion, Fraser says.

He cited the recent example of a flu outbreak affecting OMNI homes where one medical officer of health called for staff who had not had a flu shot to remain away from work for 72 hours after taking anti-viral medication while another medical officer of health in another jurisdiction ruled staff only had to stay away for four hours.

“We explained that we needed to have people in our homes to care for residents and offered to put SARS masks on but public health remained inflexible,” he says.

“There was a complete lack of understanding on the part of public health, Fraser says. “We coped but the position of public health was to the detriment of our residents.”

Nelly Hobbs, administrator at Rosebridge Manor in Jasper, had a two-word reaction to the possibility of replacing compliance officers with public health inspectors. “Oh no,” she said. “Public health is not really familiar with long-term care and, from my experience, I would say their approach is even more inconsistent than the system we have now.”

“Why on earth would they want to do that?” was the reaction of Arlene Lawlor, administrator and director of care at Maplewood in Brighton. “What does public health know about long-term care?”